Lusitania (Adrienette AU)
by Iscreamer1
Summary: The (gender-reversed) story of Titanic, Miraculous Ladybug style...but on the final voyage of the RMS Lusitania.
1. Prologue

The story of _Lusitania_ , the eight year wonder of her career and the tragedy of her sinking, is only a chapter in the saga of World War I. As late as the mid nineteenth century, ocean voyages were grim necessities instead of pleasure cruises. English author Charles Dickens called his Boston-bound ship, the _Britannia_ "not unlike a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides". Of his bunk he wrote "nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins". Even after commercial ships began to sail on fixed schedules, passengers endured cramped, unsanitary conditions for up to a month. Food was bad, disease was rampant and the sea was unpredictable. Of every hundred ships that would set sail, sixteen would never reach port. Some of them even disappeared without a trace.

The North Atlantic may have been harsh, but the world was getting smaller. Travel and mail between Europe and North America were increasing. By the late nineteenth century, technology and ship design were advancing to meet these needs and shipbuilders focused on comfort, style and speed. With each advance, the transatlantic run took less time. Seeking to make the most of this trend, a Canadian businessman named Sir Samuel Cunard legally founded the Cunard Line in 1839. He and his colleagues bid £45,000 for the service to take the English mail between his homeland and the United States. The new British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ordered six innovative liners. The first ship was _Britannia_ and she sailed on July 1840.

The new luxury liners were built for a new kind of passenger who can afford them. In their world, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish and her dog arrived at a party in a fifteen thousand dollar diamond collar. C.K.G. Billings hosted an elegant dinner served entirely on horseback. Newfound wealth found a new style during the Gilded Age, a name given by American author and social critic Mark Twain to the last three decades of the 19th century. The industrialized western world was secure and prosperous in the years following the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Poverty was still everywhere, but the growing middle class now enjoyed leisure time and the upper class flaunted it's wealth. The great minds of science and business were speeding up a pulsing, industrial beat that drowned out Mother Nature's slower, gentler rhythms. Progress was the new God for those who want to see results larger than life. Few thought about the consequences.

During the Gilded Age, bigger certainly was better in the war of commerce between shipbuilders. Increasing trade and immigration demanded ships that would accommodate both steerage passengers and the thrill seeking rich. In March 1885, John Elder and Co laid the keels for two Cunard ships that would be considered the first modern ocean liners: big, fast and comfortable, _Etruria_ and _Umbria_. 7,000 tons each would reach a speed of 19 knots, crossing the Atlantic in a mere seven-and-a-half-days. Cunard's chief rivals, the British White Star Line and the German Hamburg-America Line would have to rise to the challenge.

One American with no fear of progress was financier J. P. Morgan. The booming Atlantic passenger trade had caught his eye. He started a price war with the lines he already owned and made attractive offers to those British, European and American lines that were losing money. His International Navigation Company grew to become International Mercantile Marine. Morgan's desire to own a major British shipping enterprise focused on the White Star and Inman lines. In December 1902, he bought White Star for ten million pounds, ten times it's earnings in 1900. The liners continued to sail proudly under the Union Jack, but now an American hand rested heavily on the tiller.

The Cunard Line's rivals flourished with International Mercantile Marine's backing. The same year of the purchase, George Burns, the second Lord Inverclyde had been setting up an agreement with Morgan. As the son of the recently deceased first Lord Inverclyde, Burns had taken charge as chairman of Cunard and it's subsidiaries one year earlier and impressed his employers with his abilities and vision. The influence of the Inverclyde family on transatlantic passenger trade had come a long way since Sir Samuel Cunard first founded the company for a simple bid.

Cunard had positioned itself for speed, while White Star attempted to astound the world with sheer spectacle. Over a business meeting with the admiralty, Lord Inverclyde conceived a new line of ships. He envisioned what was to be at the time the largest moving object ever made by man. Three liners to surpass both White Star and their German rivals, at thirty-one thousand tons, these ships would be fifty percent bigger and fifty feet longer than anything yet built, able to carry more passengers to America than ever before. These three liners would be constructed to lure the world's wealthiest travelers with their magnificence. They would be called _Mauretania_ , _Lusitania_ and _Aquitania_.

In June 1903, an agreement was arraigned between the Admiralty and Cunard's Marine Superintendent James Bain, and the dream was set in motion. Rear-Admiral H. J. Oram, Charles Parsons and other ranking members of Cunard's offices arrived at Clydebank, Scotland to review John Brown & Company's construction plans for the three new wonder ships. Leonard Peskett presented the drawings assisted by his colleagues and managing director Charles McLaren. The contract signed on July 30th stated that John Brown & Company would begin construction on the first two liners now and the third later. _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ were originally conceived with three funnels, but a fourth was added a year later for extra boilers. A similar ordeal with the ship's propellers also changed with an additional number for extra speed, allowing the innermost two propellers to rotate inwards while the outer propellers rotated outwards. The ships would also use a balanced rudder and all machinery, as per Admiralty stipulations would be below the waterline. This agreement signaled an annual operating subsidy of seventy five thousand pounds each in addition to a mail contract worth sixty eight thousand pounds. Additionally in times of war, the twins would also be used as auxiliary cruisers.

Before construction began, the planners and draftsmen, encouraged by Cunard's committee for the twins, proposed a unique design that would rival the _Kaiser Wilhelm der_ Grosse of the Norddeutscher Lloyd company. First class passengers would make dramatic entrances and exits in a twisting rectangular grand staircase of black wrought iron. First and second class passengers would also have elevators to carry them between six decks of the ship. The shelter deck featured a dining saloon and nursery for children whenever their parents went to breakfast, lunch and dinner in the glorious dome capped dining room decorated in the style of the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles, making relaxation possible for children and adults on the high seas. The extravagance was obvious to all and Leonard Peskett was praised and congratulated for bringing to life every detail of the twins.

The next generation of ocean liners moved from the draftsman's table and into the real world of the shipbuilders. To accommodate the unprecedented size of these massive liners, John Brown & Company had to reorganize the shipyard and convert three of their already enormous berths into two bigger slipways. Railway tracks brought in supplies by the mark and the first set of building materials arrived by the end of the year. American architect firm Warren and Wetmore did their part by doing whatever was necessary to ensure that the piers in New York City were long enough for the new liners to dock. Construction on _Lusitania_ took place next to _Mauretania_ , starting with the bow and moved towards the stern due to the turbine engine rotors being built on the site. Once the names were officially settled on February 15th, 1906, Cunard prepared the world for the first ever floating palaces to exceed twenty thousand tons. To evoke their mythic stature, Lord Inverclyde drew his ships names from Roman provinces. _Mauretania_ was named for the province ruled by King Atlas, inventor of the celestial globe. _Lusitania_ honored Hispania Lusitania, an Iberian province that would soon become Portugal and was also the site of the Lusitanian War, a battle of resistance fought by the tribes of the Hispania Ulterior, only to be defeated by the Romans. Lord Inverclyde was obviously impressed by the Lusitanians strategy and power, not their ultimate fate.

In 1904, all ships need to carry lifeboats, but not everyone agreed on how _many_ under the terms of deck space rather than the very souls onboard. Final plans for _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ called for sixteen boats each with the standard round bar davits installed on the outer superstructure. Following the disastrous maiden voyage of White Star's _Titanic_ in 1912, Cunard kept changing the arraignments to ensure that there would be enough boats for everyone on board. In the end, twenty two wooden boats and twenty six collapsibles added up to forty eight boats and rafts with a total of two thousand six hundred and five seats that were considered adequate for three thousand one hundred and twenty five passengers and crew. In fact, it was indeed the _Titanic_ inquiry that actually exceeded the outdated British Board of Trade requirements on an up-to-date basis. But at the time of _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania's_ construction, there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate every passenger.

On June 7th, 1906, Lady Mary Inverclyde, widow of the late Lord Inverclyde, hosted a group of distinguished visitors in Clydebank for the launching ceremony of _Lusitania_. Aided by a bottle of champagne in the tradition of christening ships, the vessel slided gracefully down the slipway and into the River Clyde. Coming to a gentle stop with the assistance of six tugboats, she was then towed to the fitting out base at Gourock for completion. Three months later, _Mauretania_ was launched from the same slipway and she was to begin her maiden voyage from Liverpool two months after _Lusitania's_ the following year.

The _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania's_ safety features had set new standards for naval technology. John Brown  & Company gave the twins a double plated bottom and a system of thirty four longitudinal watertight compartments that would allow any two of them to flood without sinking the ship. They would be safe if three of the first five compartments from the bow or the first three from the stern were to flood. Even in a worse case scenario, if every single one of the first four compartments from either side or head on were to fill with water, the ship could conceivably stay afloat. Should the hull ever be punctured in one or more places, hydraulically operated watertight doors of the ordinary sliding pattern would close automatically. Then powerful pumps would empty each flooding compartment long before water could reach the top of the bulkheads and the ceiling plates. Should any crew member be shut in, they would still have a chance to escape using a control lever with enough time to escape through the doors to safety before the doors shut back again. _The Shipbuilder_ described the new ships as "unsinkable", a term that would later be used for White Star's own trio of luxurious superliners. The public mind was now reflecting on how much these ships brought satisfaction to them as the fastest most technologically advanced ships in the world. Expectations for _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ now ran even higher.

To the people of Clydebank, the wonder ships that rose above the local skyline were the pride of their city. John Brown & Company employed nearly 7,000 men, most of whom who had bent their backs in labor over _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania._ Although the work was hard, hours long, vacations few and they certainly could not afford a first class passage on the ships they built. The men and their families felt a personal attachment to these great liners. For these craftsmen, there was no greater satisfaction than to have the eyes of the world rest admiringly upon their work.

On July 27th, 1907, _Lusitania_ , nicknamed "Lucy" was completed. Her seven hundred and eighty seven foot hull was built than more of twenty six thousand inch-thick steel plates held together by more than four million rivets. Two hundred miles of electric wiring supplied power to five thousand lights. Two massive anchors would hold her in place, one for each side with a third stored in reserve on the forecastle. Twenty three double ended and two single ended boilers drove her four colossal turbine rotors, generating up to seventy six thousand horsepower. Her displacement weight was thirty eight thousand tons, even less than _Mauretania_. The cost of building and fully equipping _Lusitania_ had come to two-point-six million pounds or three-point-six million dollars, nearly two hundred and sixty million by today's standards. Cunard anticipated a quick and glorious return on it's investment.

With the fitting complete, _Lusitania_ 's officers conducted a two day sea trial on the Clyde. This was followed by her acceptance trials and having all second class accommodation in the stern gutted due to a twofold vibration during the previous acceptance trials. They tested her engines, practiced turns and to their delight, the ship reached a ground-breaking speed of twenty six-point-seven knots. They brought her back to Cunard on August 26th, satisfied with her performance and the officials of Cunard and John Brown proclaimed _Lusitania_ fit to sail. Senior Commodore James Watt accepted the honor of becoming her very first captain. At 8:00 PM on September 7th, the largest ship in the world would leave Liverpool for her maiden voyage. History was made six days later when she arrived at Pier 54 in New York City to a hundred people and horse-drawn carriages who gathered to watch the marvel of British engineering make her way towards the very last second of her final destination.


	2. Departure

Saturday, May 1st, 1915

It had been eight years since she left for her maiden voyage and aside from other modifications, the streaks of paint remained unaltered. The china remained the same. The old sheets were still being slept in. _Lusitania_ was called the Greyhound of the Seas. And she was, she really was...

In New York City's Pier 54, _Lusitania's_ superstructure rose mountainously above the dock with it's black colored funnels standing against the sky like the pillars of Solomon's Temple – and big enough to hold all his wives. Crewmen moved across the deck, dwarfed by the eight year old scale of technology. Boxes and crates were loaded into the hull without any notification of what they contained, some like auto parts and furs, notions, confectionary, silverware...and even one thousand two hundred and seventy one cases of contraband ammunition.

On the pier, horse drawn carriages, motorcars and trucks moved through the dense throng as a father and his daughter watched the ship from a safe distance on the port side. Others waved farewell "bon voyage" to friends and relatives leaving their lives forever...or temporarily.

A silver-grey 1914 Locomobile Berline Town Car, leading a blue colored Detroiter Model B1 Touring of the same year pushed through the crowd, leaving a wake in the press of people. People around the handsomely beautiful cars streamed to get on board the ship, jostling with seamen, stokers, porters, pursers, trimmers and Cunard officials.

The Locomobile pulled up next to the ship and the driver, a burly man with brute strength, opened the right passenger door for a 15 year old boy with fair hair and a stunning back suit with a bowler hat that had a light green band wrapped around it. His name was Adrien Agreste.

Adrien was born to one of the very best families in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania with an eye for attending St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island when he would turn eighteen. But his plans for college were altered to the University of Paris when he became engaged a month earlier to Chloé Bourgeois, daughter of a French politician who claimed to be the daughter-in-law of France's current president Raymond Poincaré. Intelligent, poised, and handsome, Adrien had been schooled since childhood to be everything a young man was expected to be: a model in the field of photography and fashion in his family's company that rivaled female designers like Lucille, Lady Duff-Gordon or Jeanne Paquin and his betrothal to Chloé was considered to be an admiral catch, a perfect pairing of wealth and position. But underneath his scheduled lifestyle, he was unhappy and wanted a chance to see and do more than meet the daily quota of his sheltered life, a spirit that rebelled against the rigid confines and expectations of Edwardian society controlling his destiny.

When Adrien looked up at the _Lusitania_ , he wasn't too impressed, believing it to be as small as the _Caronia_ and not as big like the _Olympic_ or the _Deutschland_ or even the newest Cunard liner _Aquitania_.

"I don't see any excitement for a decade old ship," he said to Chloé. "It doesn't look any smaller than the _Titanic_."

Chloé, a girl of just about Adrien's age, was beautiful, rich and spoiled beyond meaning. She had the same hair color as Adrien, but had it wrapped in a ponytail with eyes that were bluer than the sea. For the occasion of sailing day, she wore a honey-yellow coat over a black and white summer day dress. As a scion to the French Republic, she aspired to sophistication and insisted on propriety, finding Adrien as a suitable young man to fill the role of husband in her aristocratic future, and she presented him to her peers with the pride of ownership, basking in others' reaction to his handsomeness and pedigree.

"Adrien, honey, I know you don't act too enthusiastic over some things, but _Lusitania_ is not one of them. She may not be as luxurious as the _Titanic_ , lacking a Turkish bath, Parisian café and squash courts, but it's still a luxury liner."

Adrien's father, Gabriel Agreste was a famous fashion designer from one of the most socially prominent families in Pittsburg. After the death of his wife, the family fell on hard times, but he was determined to achieve financial salvation of his company through his son's yet-to-be made proposal to Chloé. A man who ruled his household with an iron will, he was intolerant of Adrien's rebellious nature, and found in Chloé an ally in his efforts to control his son, including one time when he tried to attend Peabody High School unannounced. Gabriel was very anti-semitic towards Jewish people, especially Germans, Russians and those of lower class education. He came out of the Locomobile, wearing a cream suit with a blood necktie. The sunlight reflected on his face showed that his appearance with Adrien's was very much alike.

"So this is Cunard's marvel of the last decade," Gabriel smiled at the leviathan.

"It was back then," Chloé snapped back. "Now it's the essential equivalent of yesterday's news."

The entire entourage of upper class American-French socialites had impeccably turned out to represent a quintessential example. Behind them were the staff, Chloe's best friend and valet Sabrina, Gabriel's assistant Nathalie Sancoeur, the aforementioned chauffeur commonly nicknamed "The Gorilla" and the houseboy Nino, a Turk-Indian orphaned by the Italo-Turkish War who was also Adrien's friend, but barely had the time to be his friend given his position.

A Cunard porter scurried towards them, observing the large amount of luggage, steam trucks and a steel safe.

"All passengers must check their baggage through the main terminal."

"Oops," said Chloé holding her right hand over her mouth flirtatiously. "Sabrina, you know what to do."

Sabrina, a mousey red-head who seemed to be very bright (at sometimes bubbly), escorted the man over the trunks.

"The trunks from the Locomobile here, twelve from the Detroiter and the safe to the port side Regal Suite B-46, 48, 50, 52, 54 and cabin B-56 at mid-ships."

Chloé checked her watch as the cargo-handlers carted the trunks away. The hour of departure, originally scheduled for 10:00 AM, was now changed to noon. Weather conditions they said it was, but the Admiralty's requisition of the SS _Cameronia_ led to a transfer of forty one passengers and crew to the _Lusitania_.

"We'd better hurry," she told her future in laws.

Nino, carrying three of the boxes that were too delicate for the baggage handlers, scurried behind Adrien, who had a curious thought enter his mind.

"Do you have my coat?" he asked.

"I've got it, friend," Nino smiled nervously.

Chloé soon stopped at the advertisement under the _Lusitania's_ by the wall of the pier, curious out of the blue as she always kept up to date with important notices, especially from her father's proclamations. It read:

It read:

"NOTICE!

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

Washington, D.C. 22nd April 1915"

"German swine," she muttered to herself. "Apparently, they have no class."

Or at least that was what she assumed. For it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at the hands of Serbian terrorists, a blank check and an ultimatum to the Austro-Hungarian Empire last July that led into a serious conflict between the two nations after being unable to fulfill the forty-eight hour time limit held within the ultimatum. Tsar Nicholas II of Imperial Russia, Serbia's allies, declared full mobilization of his country's armed forces against Germany and Austria in retaliation. Germany demanded Russia to stop the mobilization by noon of August 1st or face war. They went with the latter anyway and Germany warned France to make it's own intentions clear within another forty-eight hours. After no reply, Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium. This led to the United Kingdom declaring war on Germany as well, for according to the 1839 Treaty of London, Britain was bound to guard the neutrality of Belgium and the Germans violated it, especially after King Albert I refused a safe passage for the troops on their way to France. Because of these events that led to a heated war of nations, Chloé had lost all trust of foreign people, except for the Americans, the British and her native France. Now she was on her way back from her American studies and hour long English classes that took up most of her hobbies like shopping and gossiping.

"Cheer up, Adrikins," she said to the poor boy with his head bowed down. "I've booked us on a grand ship and you act like you're going to your mother's funeral."

Adrien, a little sensitive about his mother's passing, had a different reply.

"I feel like wearing black."

"Not on sailing day, you won't!" she teased, her right index finger tickling his nose. "At least we won't be alone, you and I will be sharing the Regal Suite with Lady Marguerite Allan and her daughters while your father stays with Mr and Mrs. Bilicke."

Sure enough, about five feet away, was Lady Hugh Montagu Allan (formerly Marguerite Ethel McKenzie), her teenage daughters Anna and Gwendolyn and their two maids, Emily Davis and Annie Walker. Gabriel greeted the noblewoman with a courteous bow and a kiss to the right hand.

"My Lady," he said, impressing her with his best attempt at a Quebec English dialect.

Adrien seemed like his father had unintentionally taught him how to be proper for the umpteenth time, trying to impress a woman of good family and her daughters. It wasn't until four seconds later when Adrien felt his left cheek being prodded by Lady Allan's right white glove.

"Adrien, dear. When I heard we would be sharing a suite with you and your fiancée, I took matters into my own hands to see that we would help make the journey more comfortable. You can dine with us at our table, my daughters will keep you company and you can have my baby Peek-a-Boo to play with."

Adrien looked carefully at Lady Allan's devoted pet Pekingese dog of white fur named Peek-a-Boo, who looked vicious amongst strangers, but was very kind and gentle towards his mistress. The girls Gwendolyn and Anna were just about as silly as the Agreste's neighbors Alberta and Catherine Crompton from Philadelphia, who were also travelling onboard with the rest of their brothers, their parents and their governess Dorothy Allen. Mr. Crompton was shipping sheepskin accouterments on _Lusitania_ for the British Army. Two more Philadelphians, Frank and Alice Tesson had also booked their tickets on D-Deck. Frank, an assistant manager of John Wannamaker's shoe department, was also heading to Paris, but on a shopping trip rather than an arraigned marriage. Harry Keser, Vice President of the Philadelphia National Bank was also on the line to board with his wife Mary, his son Floyd unable to attend for some reason.

 _Must be due to school._ Adrien thought, but it wasn't like he would miss his company. He had only known Floyd through several dinner parties and they didn't have too much fun about it. He moved along the line towards the first class gantry leading to C-Deck, where the first class passengers entered into the Grand Staircase.

Sure enough, the Agreste and Allan parties were joined by the Crompton family on the gangway and with slow steps, they were engulfed by the black wall of the ship.

Once Adrien was settled in his small cabin on the right behind the first funnel, he took out his well-possessed dairy and wrote the latest entry.

" _Dear Diary,_

 _I have just boarded a ship known as the "Greyhound of the Seas" to everyone else. But to me, it is a slave ship taking me to France in chains. Several of Father's friends and neighbors; the Cromptons, the Allans, the Keser couple are also onboard and I don't know what else to do anymore. Even though I am everything a well brought up boy should be on the outside, I am screaming internally. All I ask for in return is an exciting life, maybe one where I can strike gold someplace way out west and let all the other miners have their share of the prize._

 _I hope my family will appreciate the Corot landscape I bought from Sir Hugh Lane of the National Art Gallery. He's onboard too. I will write more after second service dinner._

 _Adrien_ "

* * *

Across 13th Street on a sidewalk café, two girls and two boys dressed in working class clothes were playing a simple game of poker. Crew members and dock workers crowded the place as well.

Marinette Cheng, a gorgeous Chinese girl of 15 with navy blue hair and a rumpled pink dress, exchanged a glance to her friend, a southern Indian named Alya Césaire. Orphaned at the age of 10, she worked a variety of jobs. After a stint as a seamstress, she went to Calais, where she drew portraits on the pier for ten cents apiece and sold her own hats and dresses for bypassers. Working her way from place to place on tramp steamers and similar accommodations, she went to New York via _Teutonic_ , where she studied art, fashion and how to speak English. Subsequently, she was going to find herself able to return to her native land in the grandest style possible onboard the _Lusitania_. But without any money for travel, she went her way through various casinos, finding Alya along the way.

Alya had brown hair and a brown beauty mark above her forehead inherited from her mother. She was on her way back to Pondicherry, where an account of affairs involving revolutionaries were taking shape and her father was one of them. Their competitors, the son of a gymnasium instructor named Jim and his friend, a poindexter of an Afro addressed only as Max, continued their sullen argument.

"I can't believe you bet on our tickets, Max."

Kim, wanting to fight alongside the British against the Germans, felt like he was perfectly fit in size and build to take on whoever came his way. Max, however was on his way to college in Edinburgh, then to a health school in Whitehall where he would become a doctor. If the war lasted that long, he would be on the front lines treating soldiers who were getting sick from diseases rather than lead poisoning of guns. He looked at Kim and spoke with the voice of reason and common sense to his arrogant friend.

"You lost the money. I'm just trying to get it back and if you don't like it, why don't you just file for bankruptcy?"

Instead of starting his own personal war over money, Kim graciously removed a card from his left hand and resumed the game. Marinette, a jaunty girl who sometimes acted clumsy beyond her compassionate and selfless actions towards others, snarked the older boy as her eyes met his above the cards she was holding.

"When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. Hit me again, Kim."

Complying, Kim gave a queen to Marinette and slipped it into her deck. In the middle of the table were bills and coins from four countries, indicating that the game had been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money were two third class tickets for the _Lusitania_.

Marinette looked over the tickets again and spoke with feistiness in her voice.

"The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."

She took a quick inaudible draw of breath and asked.

"Max?"

Max laid three cards down.

"Kim?"

Kim placed two. Marinette knew she was the one who's luck was about to change...in the most unexpected way.

"Uh-oh, two pair," she said solemnly. "Sorry, Alya."

Alya looked furious. Her eyes squinted with suspicion and the knack of ranting out at the last minute in her native Hindi.

"What, me? Sorry? Girl, you just bet all of our money-"

Marinette cut her short-lived rant, but her voice was aiming at Kim and Max.

"Sorry, but you boys won't be seeing war for a long time...CAUSE WE'RE GOIN' TO PARIS!"

Max bowed his head in defeat as the girls whooped with laughter and started to gather the money and the tickets into their grubby hands. But Kim, more enraged than his friend, balled a huge right farmer's fist, grabbing Marinette by the collar of her top.

"Fucking bitch," he muttered under his breath.

"Do you realize you are speaking to a woman?" Marinette asked in a lady's tone.

And she thrust her right knee towards his pelvis. Kim feel backwards onto the floor and lay there, muttering into a rapid harangue of his stupidity. Marinette kissed the tickets, then jumped on Alya's back and rode her around the table. It was like they won the lottery.

"Yes! And now we go to Paris, then back home to Pondicherry!" the Indian girl shouted excitedly.

"Well you'd better hurry," said a dock worker from nearby. "Ol' Lucy's gonna leave in fifteen minutes."

Marinette and Alya picked up their belongings, wrote Kim and Max's tickets under their names with her pen and rushed to the pier.

"We're gonna ride in high style!" the Chinese girl cheered. "Like all those royalties up in first class!"

"As much as I would like to join you in Paris," Alya shouted after her. "I still have my family back home in Pondicherry."

"Won't they miss you if you stayed with me?"

"I haven't seen them for two years! Not even before the war started!"

"I thought India was neutral!" Marinette felt her voice bounce as she ran.

"When you're allies with England, you need all the help you can get against the Germans!"

At last they reached the gangway to the third class entrance on E-Deck. Junior Third Officer Albert Bestic was just about to close the door when the girls came up to him, shouting.

"Wait, we're passengers!"

"Have you been through the inspection queue?"

"Of course," Marinette lied. "Anyway, as women, we don't have any lice...both of us that is."

She handed the altered tickets to the officer. He inspected them for a second, then looked up and said.

"Right, come on board."

And they ran in, nearly bumping into the ship's typist Sadie Hale, along the way.

"Next time," she called after them. "Try to be more careful!"

As she turned back, continuing to write her report for the _Cunard Daily Bulletin_ , she could almost hear Marinette shouting.

"We are the luckiest bitches in the world, you know that?"

Sadie chuckled and went back to writing those words in her report just as the door closed.

Marinette and Alya burst through a door onto the aft well deck. They ran across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. When they got to the rail and Marinette started to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.

"Goodbye! _Au revoir! Zài jiàn!_ "

"Do you know somebody?" Alya asked.

"Of course not, silly! That's the whole point of a great farewell! Besides, I feel so...attached to this country. Saying good-bye to everyone down below is tantamount to saying good-bye to America."

At the stroke of noon, _Lusitania_ raised anchor for the last time, reversed her engines away from the pier with the help of two tugboats, steamed down the Hudson River and made her way to the open sea on her one hundred and first eastbound crossing. There were over three hundred and seventy three men, women and children in steerage, six hundred and one in second cabin and two hundred and ninety travelling in saloon. They came from over a dozen lands, returning to their families, attending business meetings and even enlisting for the war, the polar opposite of a seventy year wave of immigrants seeking a better life in the new world.

On F-Deck, Marinette and Alya found their cabins, F-34 in the bow of the ship right by the cargo hatch. Travelling all that way through the narrow corridors with other groups of single men and their families felt like a foreshadowing of college with numerous dorm rooms. Entering the cabin, a modest cubicle with four bunks, a port hole and two other kids filled the area, their names were Ivan, a strong obese young man with a streak of blonde hair, and Alix Kubdel, a tomboy with red-pink hair and a silver pocket watch as the only memento of her father, who had gone to serve the British army out of his own patriotic support to fight in the war. Alix, like any neutral American, stayed behind and took a job as a waitress at the Delmonico Restaurant on 2 South William Street to earn herself enough money to buy a ticket. After eight months cleaning the dishes and serving calamari from the sea, she had saved enough money to book two tickets on the _Lusitania_ with her brother Jalil, who was on his way to the University of Southampton for a special course in history. But Jalil had already booked passage on the Hamburg-American Liner _Cincinnati_ about a month ago, leaving her to spend some of her extra money on a ticket for Ivan, whose love for a fellow orphan girl named Mylène Haprèle brought them back together when she told him that he would not be seeing her again for quite some time due to monetary and family issues. Eventually they found each other on the ship just before it departed with a hug and a kiss to the forehead.

"Marinette Cheng, nice to meet you."

Alix was interrupted by her right hand being shaken by Marinette's left, taken aback by her odd posterity. Alya threw herself on the top bunk on the left, clutching her luggage.

"Who says you get the top bunk?" Marinette said furiously, wanting it first.

"Well I wanted to have one the moment we got the tickets!"

Alix turned to Ivan.

"Where is Kim?" she asked him.

Ivan did not have a clue, his thoughts entirely focused on Mylène from across the hall. Marinette and Alya kept the origin of the tickets to themselves for the remainder of the journey.

* * *

In comparison to the third and second class accommodations, the Regal Suite on the port and starboard sides were in the Petit Trianon style and comprised of a dining room, drawing room, two bedrooms, bathroom and a toilet. The occupants on the port side, Albert and Gladys Bilicke, were distant friends of Gabriel and owners of the Hollenbeck Hotel in Los Angeles. Due to an illness of some sort, Albert needed abdominal surgery and his doctors suggested that he should take a vacation for some much needed rest and relaxation. Nathalie had already unpacked and found Gabriel in B-52, the back of his head facing her, staring out the port hole at the disappearing sight of New York City.

"I see you found the sitting room, sir," she said with dry humor in her voice. "Will you be requiring anything?"

"No thank you, Nathalie," Gabriel replied bluntly. "I was just going to take a stroll around the promenade deck before lunch."

Adrien shared his cabin, B-56, with 44 year old Jewish-American Herman Myers, head of the feather importing house of H. & E. & S. Myers on 684 Broadway back in New York. Although his father was anti-Semitic, he thought it best to keep Mr. Myers' religion a secret. He was looking over the Corot landscape, asking Mr. Myers as to where to hang it.

"Would you like it by the wall close to the door?" Mr. Myers asked him.

"I'd rather have it above the bed," Adrien told the man.

The painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot seemed like an abstract work of art, with a vista of six thin trees amongst a grassy field populated by cows. It was called The Lyrical Landscape. Adrien's love for animals, his favorite species being cats, were something he could not afford as his father felt that pets were too much of a responsibility.

Sabrina stood by the regal suite on the port side, watching the 19 year old baggage handler Herbert Fleming push the cart with the safe towards her.

"Put it in the wardrobe on the port side please," she instructed him.

As he did, Chloé came from the starboard side with a tulip glass of Hiedsieck cuvée called Diamant bleu vintage 1907 in her right hand, dismayed by the painting.

"God, not that finger painting again," she said scornfully through the doorway. "Sir Hugh Lane certainly wasted his time and money selling you that thing."

"Well, I like it," said Adrien, nothing bothering to face her with a light scowl. "The difference between your taste in art compared to mine is that I feel like I'm in a fantasy."

"What is the name of the artist?" asked Mr. Myers.

"Jean Corot," replied Adrien looking over the canvas. "He died about forty years ago."

"And considering the fact he's dead is a perfect time for me to say his works were crude, almost nothing compared to photography," Chloé resumed. "At least it was cheap."

Nino came in to hang up some of Adrien's clothes, feeling the soft sheets of the bed.

"Just think," he said excitedly. "I'll be the first to slip under the covers tonight!"

"Actually," Chloé spoke abruptly. "I'll be the first."

Nino blushed at the innuendo and edged around the girl to make a quick exit. Mr. Myers, sensing the couple's need for a private moment, left as well. Once they were alone, Chloé placed her arms on Adrien's shoulders, lifting her right foot as she did.

"Yours...the first and only forever."

She puckered her lips into a kiss and Adrien reluctantly returned the favor like he was performing an exercise of futility. This was a bleak prospect on how the remainder of his life was going to be: the husband of a boorish Frenchwoman whose only interests were money, money, money.

Second service lunch was announced when Vernon Livermore blew his bugle to the tune of trilling quarter notes, the song in question possibly having been "The Roast Beef of Old England". Now they were ready to explore this floating palace of the last decade. Gabriel took his party to the first class dining room, then later on to the Verandah Café at 4:35 near the stern for a pre-dinner snack. Meals were the perfect social event of shipboard life to catch up with old friends or make new ones, from the famous to the unknowns in the array of lounges, smoking rooms, dining rooms and other places to congregate. Third class had fewer options, but all had free access to a designated deck space on the Shelter Deck. Entering the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean through a heat wave, the passengers were eager to ignore the war around them entirely and sail into the peaceful waters...despite several premonitions and cancelling's of the passage by several people.

Most of the other first class passengers joining _Lusitania_ were wealthy Americans, Britains and Canadians accustomed to the luxury they were about to experience. Millionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and his valet Ronald Denyer were travelling to a meeting of the International Horse Breeders' Association in London, braced to offer a fleet of wagons for the British Red Cross. Silent film actress Rita Jolivet, active suffragette Lady Margaret Mackworth, writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice, businessman Ogden Haggerty Hammond, playwright Charles Frohman, architect Theodate Pope Riddle-the list went on. They were the royalty of the gilded age, the who's who of high society. The ship's Captain William Turner and his officers would greet them all personally. These were the people on whom Lusitania's image was built.

Many of _Lusitania_ 's second class passengers were overbooked. These included were educated middle class people like Ian Holbourn, a vacationing laird from Foula returning for the publication of his greatest project the Fundamental Theory of Beauty. There were families en route, such as the Aitkens from Merritt, British Columbia who originally booked passage on the _Cameronia_ , but the voyage was cancelled due to the ship being acquisitioned by the Admiralty. Their accommodations on _Lusitania_ included a less regal version of the first class dining room, a library for ladies and a smoking room decorated with mahogany paneling. The third class dining room, on the other hand, was furnished with polished pine and was equipped with a piano provided for it's passengers. Like second class, the dining room also had long tables and in two sittings. The cabins felt small and rude, but they took it with maturity as any other person would expect on such on a large ship.

Even at sea, _Lusitania's_ passengers could still send and receive telegrams. A powerful Marconi wireless set-up put them in contact with their world. Most liners who offered this service had a single operator at the Morse key, but _Lusitania_ had two telegraphists on the job for twenty four hour service. Robert Leith and David Craig McCormick like many men over the last few years, have seen the future in wireless communication and attended a special Marconi school to learn this exciting new trade. Using _Lusitania's_ call letters MFA, they would broadcast the words of her passengers five hundred to fifteen hundred miles beyond the flat horizon. However, due to the war, the Marconi Shack located on the Sun Deck was mostly being used to receive messages instead of sending them, to prevent the Germans from divulging their location.

The journey was off to a perfect start...but the sea was not without it's dangers, like harsh weather, rogue waves, rocks, icebergs...and submarines. On April 30th, a day before _Lusitania_ 's departure, one particular submarine, an Unterseeboot designated _U-20_ , left Emden, Germany for the North Sea. Her master was Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger of the Kaiserliche Marine, a professional in the field of his country's navy. British Naval Intelligence in Room 40 of the Admiralty became aware of her presence two days later while tracking the activities of enemy submarines. _Lusitania's_ officers however, had other concerns to deal with. Three Germans had stowed away onboard the ship and were found in the port side pantry shortly after the departure. Apprehended by Detective-Inspector William Pierpoint, they refused to answer any questions and were kept in a cabin near the master-at-arms' office. John Neil Leach, one of the ship's waiters was a known German sympathizer and he later believed that the ship was armed after sneaking into the hold the night before departure.


	3. The Queen of the World

Later that afternoon, they had passed the Ambrose Lightship and were steaming east off the coast of Nantucket, with nothing out ahead of them...but ocean.

Captain William Turner instructed First Officer Jones on the bridge.

"Keep her speed at 21 knots, Mr. Jones. It will help to save the coal."

"Yes, sir."

And he moved the engine telegraph lever to half-full.

In the engine room, Chief Engineer Archibald Bryce shouted to his fellow crew, "All half ahead!"

Bryce stood carefully, watching the engines surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. Keeping with the pace of 21 knots rather than the usual twenty five, _Lusitania's_ engines thundered loud then quietly as she kept to her limited speed.

John Doyle watched his brother, chief stoker Peter Doyle command the other stokers in Boiler Room 3. They were chanting a song as they hurled coal into the roaring furnaces. The stokers were covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles (some of them exposed due to the heat) working like part of the machinery as they toiled in the hellish glow.

The stokers were covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles (some of them exposed due to the heat) working like part of the machinery as they toiled in the hellish glow

Captain Turner stepped out of the enclosed bridge onto the port wing, taking in his breath of fresh air. Clean shaven, gruff and well-built at the age of fifty eight, he had been at sea for half a century, starting work as a cabin boy before receiving a captain's license in 1886. The year before, he received the Humane Society's silver medal for saving a young boy who had fallen overboard from the SS _Catalonia_ (while it was still in the Alexandria Dock, that is). After commanding the _Mauretania_ on her maiden voyage, Turner took over from the retired Commodore Watt as the captain of the _Lusitania_ , resuming control of her only after the previous captain, Daniel Dow, felt that the war was getting on his nerves.

The ship glowed with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Marinette and Alya stood right at the bow gripping the curving railing. Marinette leaned over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow gutted the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.

In the glassy wave of the bow, two dolphins appeared under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They did it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Marinette watched the dolphins and grinned. They breached, jumping clear of the water and dived back, crisscrossing in front of the bow and dancing ahead of the juggernaut.

"Look at them jump!" the blue haired girl giggled like she had never seen such marvelous creatures before.

The stokers continued shoveling and saving the coal, the engines pounded before relaxing their speed and Alya was grinning at her friend with zeal.

"I can see Ireland already," she said before realizing there was a lot more of the ocean's mileage to to go. "That is very small of course."

Taking in every last ounce of the adventurous excitement, Marinette stretched her arms into a crucified position and released a scream so loud the whole world could practically hear.

"I'M THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD!"

 _Lusitania_ rose to the horizon as seagulls flew around her, with the sound of Marinette's whooping. The ship's funnels marched past like the pillars of death, one by one. The people strolling on the decks and standing at the rail became antlike.

* * *

"I am still the greatest actress to ever embrace the stage," said Josephine Brandell to her fellow patrons at the Verandah Café. "And I can assure you, I've still got a strong set of pipes from when I first performed Night Birds."

The Verandah Café was located aft of A-Deck just behind the smoking room and the first such example on a Cunarder. Decorated with ivy, trellises, and wickerwork, the once less popular spot on the ship increased with a more welcoming atmosphere, a place where passengers could have coffee, tea or light meals. Gabriel, Adrien, Chloé, Miss Brandell, former state senator from Delaware and president of New York Shipbuilding Company, Samuel Knox and one of Gabriel's New York rivals, Maximilian M. Schwarcz, senior member of his own women's fashion and cloak firm on 141 Madison Avenue.

"Of all the ships I have travelled on," Mr. Knox said in fine tones. "Most have their luxuries, while others have speed like this one. It's almost very fortunate to be on a ship like this, especially when it's her one hundredth crossing."

"One hundred and first crossing," Mr. Schwarcz corrected him. "I'm sure Gabriel could do the math better than you."

Adrien removed a cigarette from a humidor, chuckling at the humor of his father's rival. He would later mark the time and date in his diary as the first time he had ever smoked in his entire life. But Gabriel thought otherwise.

"You know perfectly well that I don't smoke, Adrien," his father scolded. "And neither should you."

"All the other men are doing it," Adrien smiled sheepishly.

"But you are not a man yet," Gabriel's voice was stern.

Adrien could not defy his father's death-glare. It was a face of authority that reminded him not to go against his wishes.

"All right."

He sighed as put the cigarette out and left it on the ash tray. But Adrien was not about to give up on his sense of humor. His head went to Chloé, who was asking a nearby waiter, an amateur lightweight boxing champion named Matthew Freeman, for tea and strawberry ice cream.

"Tell me Chloé, do you approve of women who smoke?"

"You heard what your father said, smoking is not good for you."

If you are going to bore me, I suggest you talk of something interesting for once. Adrien sighed in his head.

Chloé resumed her order.

"We'll both have tea and strawberry ice cream, just three scoops each. You like ice cream, don't you Adrikins?"

"Ice cream?" Adrien felt like the girl was going out of her mind. "It's not even nine o'clock!"

"So what? We won't be eating dinner for another four hours."

"And I think the ship's doctor would recommend a healthy diet instead of ice cream before dinner. You don't want ruin your girlish figure do you?"

Gabriel stared at his son. It was as if he tried to insult Chloé about her weight.

"Son, what has gotten into you?"

An embarrassed Adrien turned to face him.

"It is too early for ice cream!"

"True," said Miss Brandell, "But Miss Bourgeois does have a point. It would not hurt to have a small helping of ice cream even if it spoils your appetite."

"Or at least, not to our children," added Mr. Knox. "When they reach your age, Adrien. You can have ice cream anytime you want to."

"Well, if I want to stay fit," Adrien taunted. "Why not I just take another walk around the deck. I am sure I could use some fresh air as well."

And he left the table, stalking his way towards the promenade deck.

"I apologize for my son's behavior," Gabriel was mortified.

"Well, he's a pistol, Gabriel," sighed Mr. Schwarcz. "I only hope you can handle him. You may even have to start minding what he reads from now on."

Gabriel took this as a complementary advice. Even though they were rivals, they still had a sense of opinion over Adrien and would often keep a civil tongue around him like gentlemen.

* * *

On the poop deck of the stern, at the bottom between the first and second class promenades, Marinette was sitting on a bench in the sun. _Lusitania's_ wake spread out behind her to the horizon. She had her knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, her only valuable possession. With conte crayon she draw rapidly, using sure strokes. A widower from Toronto named George Hook had his twelve year old daughter Elsie standing on the lower rung of the rail. She was leaned back against his chest, watching the seagulls while his son Frank looked on from behind. Edward Williams and his six siblings; Edith, George Albert, Ethel, Florence, and David played tag along the deck with so few hiding spaces.

"I say it's a Scottish ship," Alix said out the blue. "Probably about 7,000 of Scotsmen built this ship."

"Not unless we rank the scheme of things," Marinette replied.

Alix looked over the sketching pad and asked.

"Do you make a living with your drawings?"

But Marinette didn't say anything. Before she could reply, her mind wandered, and found itself looking up at an angel of flaxen hair in a tan colored suit.

So handsome. She thought with the color of ladybugs turning into the shape of hearts as his face was engraved in her mind.

Adrien turned suddenly and looked right at Marinette. She was caught staring at him with interest, but she did not look away. He did, but then looked back. Their eyes met across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds. The top and bottom of the promenades defining their class in a nutshell. Alix and Alya saw this as well, along with some of the other passengers who took a quick look. Florence Williams thought that he looked like prince, but Alix saw the hopelessly romantic stare in Marinette's eyes and decided to give her the bad news.

"Forget it, Miss Cheng. You'll never get next to the likes of him."

Marinette did not hear her, he kept watching until Chloé came into view. She took Adrien's right arm, clinging to it like a stuffed animal as it caught him by surprise.

"Do you mind?" he asked rudely.

"I just want to remind you about dinner," Chloé said. "Second service will be in an hour."

Adrien sighed and walked away. Marionette's pupils followed him until he completely vanished from sight.

* * *

Dressed in a maroon colored tux with a black vest, black tie and a white shirt, Adrien had hardly touched a morsel of his dinner. It was seven o'clock and his quarter of lamb with mint sauce was getting cold. He sat at the middle table with Chloé, Gabriel, Charles Bowring of the Bowring Shipowners and Agents, Alice and Elbert Hubbard and Frances Stephens, wife of Cabinet minister George Washington Stephens and a prominent lady of Montréal high society. He barely listened of any of them talking about war and politics, for he was among the many passengers who refused to believe that _Lusitania_ could be torpedoed. He scalped the lamb and finally took a bite out of it. The mint sauce tasted like poison going down his throat, almost wanting him to throw up all over the floor. But he did not dare to even so much as vomit all over the beautiful carpet.

"Eat up," his father reminded him after one ten minute period after the other.

Adrien continued to ration his supply of the food before only half of it was finished.

"I can't take another bite," he told the others when he got up from his table.

He was still getting that touch of _mal-de-mer_ when he returned to his cabin. Mr. Myers was still at dinner, perhaps even smoking on tobacco in the lounge, reminding Adrien of his first, yet short lived try with the cigarette. Perhaps it was a side-effect of the tobacco that was making him sick...or aggressive in the same way with alcohol. He pulled off his tie, ran his hands through his combed hair and sat down on the bed. Next to him was his diary, he looked at for a second before finding the strength to write in the next page.

" _Dear Diary,_

 _I have seen my whole life as if I have already lived it. An endless parade of parties, cotillions, yachts, polo matches, horse races, Broadway plays with more drama than action, photoshoots and arraigned marriages. YUCK! Here I am, always having to meet the same skinny people who talk of nothing but business, politics, beauty products, manufacturing of imported steel and war when I could be doing something exciting like horse riding or playing for the New York Yankees!_

 _To put it bluntly, my life is repetitive, endless and boring, boring, BORING! I feel like I am standing in front of a great precipice with no one to pull me back. Should I comitt suicide, no one will care...or even notice._

 _With that being said, I guess this will be my last entry._

 _Farewell forever,_

 _Adrien_ "


	4. First Love

Adrien ran down the C-Deck promenade, hair tousled, jacket dishelmed and teary eyes. Angry, furious and wanting to end it all, he didn't bother to say one final "excuse me" to Mrs. Iris Burnside, whom he bumped into. The shocked Mrs. Burnside dropped her jaw into the shape of an "O" when Adrien's right shoulder brushed against her left. He rushed through the second class promenade, not even bothering the people below his class who watched him pass by, unaware of his troubles.

Marinette, smoking a cigar and thinking about her dream boy throughout the starry sky, saw a flash of yellow pass her. Curious to investigate, she followed him to the stern on slow footsteps.

Unable to stop in time, Adrien slammed against the base of the stern flagpole and held onto it, panting. He stared out at the black water that was the Labrador Current. It was as black as death...the death of himself.

 _Perhaps I'll drown_ , he thought morbidly. Maybe the propellers will hack me to pieces.

Adrien stood like a figurehead in reverse as he looked down at the name "Lusitania Liverpool" adorning the stern. He climbed above the railing as quietly as he could be, took one last look at the ship and turned slowly to look down at the water being churned by the four propellers. He felt almost against the thought at first, but he had ultimately decided his fate. He was just about to throw herself when a high pitched voice broke the silence.

"What are you doing?"

Adrien turned his face over his right shoulder at the navy haired girl he had seen earlier. They were the only two on the stern, save for two sailors; Thomas O'Mahoney and Herbert Fleming. Taking in her features, he recognized her and before either of them could mention where they first saw each other before. Marinette resumed her voice.

"If you're doing what I think you are doing, I'd advise you not to do it."

She extended her right hand towards him.

"Give me your hand," she said in a motherly tone. "I'll pull you back over."

Adrien whipped his face back down towards the water.

"Don't come any closer! I'll let go."

"No you won't."

Adrien looked over his left shoulder again, confused as though an epiphany struck his head.

"What do you mean I won't? You don't know anything about me, now go away!"

Marinette shook her head, she removed her shawl and prepared to remove her heels.

"I can't just walk away and pretend like nothing happened. If you let go, I will have to jump in after you."

"Don't be silly," Adrien nodded in denial, wiping the tears from his face. "You'll be killed."

"It may be a twenty foot drop, but I am a good swimmer."

"A twenty foot drop is enough to kill you, even in the water."

"I'm not saying that it would hurt," said Marinette, taking off her right shoe. "But it hurts even more when you feel the cold water."

She plopped her right boot down on the deck. The sound of the shoe hitting the deck caught Adrien's attention. A picture was forming inside his head, a picture of ice.

"How cold?" he asked after three seconds passed.

"Freezing," she said like it was nothing serious. "Maybe thirty degrees below zero. We should be over the wreck of the _Titanic_ by now...or, so I think."

She stood up after removing her left boot, now her pale pink socks were exposed.

"As much as I find hypothermia to be a 'chilling' subject. I remember back in China, I grew up near Lanzhou, when I was five, me, my mother and father went fishing on the Huáng Hé, or the Yellow River as your country calls it."

This was all new to Adrien, speaking to an obviously Chinese girl was the start of an eye-opening experience.

"I've never fished before," he said, despairingly.

"I see," Marinette spoke with doctoral tones. "You're an indoor boy. But let me remind that once you touch the water, it hits you a hundred pin needles attached to your body. You can't breathe or think about anything but the pain...so how about it?"

She slowly extended her right towards his left, and Adrien, finally accepting the reality of the situation, took her hand and turned around. Their eyes were locked onto each other and somehow they seemed to fill his entire universe.

"Anyway...I'm Marinette Cheng."

"I am Adrien Agreste."

"I guess I'll have to write that one down."

Adrien chuckled, not having felt this sense of humor before his mother died. He lifted his right foot onto the rail, then the next, and finally he was on top of her. His balance started to slip and Marinette shrieked, fearing he would crushed by his seemingly muscular weight. Herbert Fleming and Thomas O'Mahoney heard the scream and headed for the stern just as Marinette, awkwardly clutching Adrien, fell to the deck with a plop. With their eyes locked tighter than before Adrien beamed a silly smile at Marinette's face of shock. She was feeling dazed and disoriented from her head colliding with the deck.

"What is all this?" asked Fleming when he reached the flagpole.

Marinette's dress was torn, and the hem was pushing up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looks at Adrien, the first class boy with his jacket out of shape, the steerage girl clearly in distress, and started to draw conclusions.

"Don't move," O'Mahoney glared at Adrien and turned to Fleming. "Find the master-at-arms."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Adrien was being detained by Mr. William Williams, one of the two masters-at-arms serving aboard the ship. Marinette sat on the deck, wrapped in her shawl as Charles Frohman offered her a cup of brandy, which she declined. Chloé was there, distressed by Adrien's alleged actions.

"How could you do such a thing, Adrikins? Especially at your age? What made you think you could put your hands on that girl?"

She pushed against his face for further interrogation.

"Was it lust? Was it...passion? Was it..."

"An accident," Adrien replied. "I made a foolish decision by coming over here. I swallowed an overdose of the sea air and I nearly slipped when I went to the flagpole."

He indicated his head to the aforementioned pole.

"I was leaning far over to see the propellers. They felt pretty fascinating, how they worked and all and I was curious I just slipped, and I would have gone overboard, but Miss Cheng here saved my life, nearly at the cost of her own."

Chloé looked at Marinette and immediately saw that she was Chinese. Although China was just about as neutral as America around this time, she saw them as nothing more than a useless race only fit for building railroads.

"So you wanted to see the propellers?" she asked again out of curiosity.

Adrien nodded, and Frohman, a Broadway playwright having travelled across the sea many times before, had some knowledge of naval technology.

"Boys and machinery do not mix," he uttered.

Mr. Williams looked over Adrien's left shoulder and asked brutally.

"Was that the way of it?"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged winks, intent on keeping the real events a secret.

"That's exactly how it went," Marinette replied.

"Well, I say the girl is hero then," Frohman said proudly. "Good for you, miss. Now how about another drink?"

Mr. Williams removed the cuffs from Adrien's wrists and Marinette got to her feet as Chloé escorted Adrien back inside.

"Shouldn't I also have little...reward of sorts?" Marinette asked in a reminding tone.

Chloé was rarely a generous girl, but thought that an exception wouldn't hurt after several other moments in her life where she rewarded a few other people with money at the last minute of changing her mind.

"Sabrina, I think $20 should do it?"

"Is that all you can give her after she saved my life?" Adrien was displeased. "The least you can do is give a poor girl like something even greater."

He was thankful that Marinette did not hear the "P" word. Then, Chloé thought of even generous idea. She turned back to Marinette and appraised her condescendingly.

"Perhaps you can join us for dinner sometime during this voyage. Then you can tell us all about your heroic tale."

Marinette was feeling even luckier. Dinner with a troupe of rich folks seemed like a delicious dream come true.

"Sure, count me in!"

Chloé, understanding this, turned to go, putting a protective arm around Adrien. She leaned close to Frohman as they walked away.

"This should be amusing," she muttered with spite.

As Sabrina turned to leave, Marinette whistled after her.

"Mind if I have a cigarette?"

Sabrina, while concerned about "modern women" like everyone else, happily tossed a silver cigarette to the Chinese girl, with a matchbox to go with it.

"Thank you," she said in her native Chinese.

Then Sabrina noticed something else, her eyes were darting down on Marinette's boots.

"You'll want to tie your shoes."

"Thanks for reminding me," chuckled Marinette as she knelt down.

"And yet there's one thing that puzzles me: How were you able to remove your shawl and shoes so quickly in the time it took for Adrien to slip so...suddenly?"

She smiled and left. Marinette went back under the promenade shelter, resuming her smoking and her thoughts.

* * *

Back in the Regal Suite, after telling Gabriel about the events that took shape in the past hour, Adrien decided, out of his own respect for Chloé, to sleep with her in Lady Allan's bedroom. He had just changed into his light blue pajamas when Chloé herself came into the room with a small box.

"I know you have been upset," she said sympathetically. "And I do not pretend to know why you decide to just jump off the ship after it leaves the port."

The box in her right hand was aiming at his face before it started to lower to the level of his own right.

"I was going to save this for the wedding, but I thought that now seemed like a good time, especially when one has his or her own wedding planned three years ahead of time."

She opened the box and inside

She opened the box and inside...was a ring. A black ring with the green paw print of a black cat in the cameo, a symbol of bad luck, even though neither of them believed in superstition.

"Good gracious," said Adrien numbly.

"I know," Chloé flirted. "Perhaps it's a reminder of how much you love cats."

She placed the ring on Adrien's right ring finger, staring at it.

"They say it was worn by the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet and they called it a Miraculous Stone."

"It is overwhelming," said Adrien, locked into the timeless details.

"It came from royalty and we are royalty, aren't we Adrien?"

Chloé wrapped her arms around his neck, her face demanding a kiss of "thank you". But Adrien kept observing the ring and when Chloé went to bed, he crept back to his cabin and wrote in his diary.

" _Dear Diary,_

 _I have decided to live on and make my life more meaningful, with or without Chloé. I met this girl named Marinette Cheng who pulled me back from the railing, and somehow I feel like she is better than everyone else I know, possibly due to the fact that she is from third class and she is Chinese, which is a pretty exotic country in the opinions of my fellow peers. Probably even more exotic than India where Nino comes from._

 _Additionally, Chloé gave me a wedding ring which she claims is from an Egyptian goddess. Black cats may be a superstition of bad luck, but it feels like something worse...a cold stone binding me to her. The original owner Bastet using her powers beyond mythology to have me and Chloé married all too soon. I think Chloé only gave me this gift to reflect the light back onto herself, to illuminate the greatness of her power as the daughter of a French politician._

 _And now it is time for bed._

 _See you in the morning,_

 _Adrien_ "

Had he waited six more days, his suicide attempt would have been more appropriate. But of course, he didn't.


	5. Seeing People

Sunday, May 2nd, 1915

The next morning bought rain and fog to the _Lusitania_ and the waves were turbulent enough to infect a person with seasickness. Adrien was already dressed in a warm coat and he was walking with purpose. After a long period of church service in the first class saloon, he walked aft to the stern, trying to look for the entrance to third class. Taking the Shelter Deck, he went forward into the bow and took the stairs between the first and second funnels.

The third class dining room on D-Deck was busy with the voices of many languages (Greek, Russian, Persian, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Indian), with children scarfing down their meals, women trying to act proper by eating slowly, and the men joking around in a rather boisterous manner. Alix was playing "Oh, That Navajo Rag" on the piano, followed by "Far Above Cayuga's Waters", hoping to impress the affections of a boy named Nathanaël, who was travelling with the Coughlin family back to Ireland to meet his parents. No matter where they came from, men, women and children were united in their journey to Liverpool. Within these walls, the uncertain world became a smaller, friendlier place.

Ivan and Mylene's eyes caught the attention of Adrien, walking into the room. At the moment he set foot in the room, the occupants took one glance at him before resuming their meals. He spotted Marinette and walked over to her.

Marinette was playing with Frank and Elsie Hook, drawing funny faces with her sketchbook when her eyes caught sight of Adrien.

"Hello, Miss Cheng."

Marinette felt her cheeks flush a tinge of pink.

"Hello, again."

"Is it all right if we could speak in private?"

"Where could we go? It's raining outside."

"How about the stairs?"

"Sure, we could sit by the stairs."

Ivan and Mylene observed the two, then at each other. It was like someone else had found love below the decks of the world's fastest liner.

All but the hardiest of passengers were back inside as _Lusitania_ encountered fog. Adrien and Marinette walked side by side and sat down by the top left side of the stairs on C Deck. Some of the other steerage passengers, like Walter Dawson Mitchell and Rose Howley, found the odd couple as a fanciful curiosity.

"Miss Cheng, I-"

"Please, call me Marinette."

Adrien felt like the name had an unusual meaning...or at least it was the name that was unusual.

"Marinette...It took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you. I wanted to thank you for saving my life, as well as your own discretion."

"Thank you," Marinette smiled. "You seemed upset about something."

Adrien bowed his head mournfully, trying to find the words.

"I'm a poor little rich boy," he cracked. "What do I care about being upset?"

"What I was thinking was, what could have happened to this boy to make him think he had no way out?" asked Marinette.

Adrien began his story, a long story condensed within three minutes or less.

"Well, it all started when my mother died of consumption. Father couldn't find a cure, even with medical heath, so spent half of the family fortune on medical research which proved fruitless, but really factored a great donation to hospitals across the state of New York. When I turned fifteen last month, Father introduced me to Chloé, the blond haired girl you saw last night reprimanding me for forcing you, which I did not do. Chloé saw me as a potential husband and before I knew it, I was engaged to be married, and now we are going to Paris, France where Chloé lives so I can prepare to take on the role of husband. Being married is supposed to be the best day of my life, but it is too soon for me! Even though I am not actually _going_ to be married until I am seventeen, my father thinks it will ensure his financial problems with the fashion company where I work as a model and now I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs because no one even cares what I think about this!"

His voice grew louder with every word he spoke, but not too loud at a volume that would upset the nearby passengers, who were going about their business as usual. Marinette started to sympathize with this interesting boy she had only known for a day and a half.

"So you wanted to jump off because you don't love this Chloé girl?" she asked, trying not to sound offensive.

Adrien nodded yes.

"So don't marry her."

"I wish it was that simple," Adrien sighed at the seemingly inane thought. "Chloé would get angry, and my father...all he ever thinks about is money. I told him seven times over that money doesn't solve anything, but he won't listen."

"I can see this happening with you being the ignorant one and your father telling you that money can't buy you happiness," Marinette added. "But not the other way around."

"Believe me, it feels like the other way around. If I couldn't reason with them, I could make them grieve instead."

Adrien had his back turned to Marinette like before when they first met. But then, looking over his left shoulder, his interest was piqued by an rectangular book of sorts under Marinette's left armpit.

"What is that...book you are carrying around?" he asked. "Are you an artist."

"Yes, I am," replied Marinette, and she opened the sketchbook.

Each sketch drawn and colored by her through strokes presented an expressive little bit of humanity: an old woman's hands, a sleeping man, George and Elsie Hook at the rail. The faces were luminous, colorful and alive. Her book was a celebration of the human condition.

"Marinette, this is exquisite work!" cried Adrien.

"I didn't too much about art when I went to Paris," Marinette was shy, but Adrien was willing to know more about France's capitol (aside from Chloé's heritage).

"I guess you do get around for a young lady of limited needs," Adrien said without a hint of rudeness in his voice.

Adrien turned four more pages and came upon a series of full frontal and rear nude. He was transfixed by the languid beauty she had created. Her nudes were soulful, real and graphic with expressive hands and eyes. They felt more like portraits than studies of the human form...almost uncomfortably intimate and erotic. Adrien blushed, raising the book as a steward. He tried to sound mature as he asked Marinette.

"Did you draw these from life?"

"One of the good things about Paris is that a lot of boys and girls are willing to go around, taking their clothes off like naturists."

Adrien giggled at the mental image of Chloé doing something similar to that, like skinny dipping in the Seine River.

He studied one drawing in particular, the boy posed half in sunlight, half in shadow. His hands lying at his chin, one furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful. It was all too detailed down to the front of the uncircumcised genitals.

"Noticed how I used this boy several times? I was in love with his hands, considering he was a ruffian and all."

She turned the page over to a young lady with a long flow of hair covering her left eye.

"This girl Juleka sat by the Pont Alexandre III every night waiting for someone to recognize her for what her reflection showed on inside. They called her invisible, but I soon helped her find someone...a girl named Rose who was-sort of a Lesbian."

Adrien looked over at Marinette, expressing his feelings universally at the consortium of his newfound friend.

"You have talent, Marinette...you see people for what they really are."

"Sort of..."

"And what do you see in me?"

He closed his eyes, trying to be flirtatious, almost expecting a compliment.

"A poor little rich boy."

Opening his eyes, Adrien was stunned. Now she was the one going against his perceived words.

The two friends thought it was time to head back down to their own "stations" and Adrien, knowing that Chloé would be back inside the Regal Suite after service, hoped that he would not get into too much trouble during his absence. By the time he got back to the suite, Lady Allan and her daughters were having a small meal of foie gras in utter silence that was broken when Chloé stepped in, arraigning her gloves for tonight's dinner.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "Out enjoying the rain?"

"I am not wet, Chloé," Adrien interjected. "I was just going out for a stroll, dreaming about a new life ahead of us."

Adrien did not want to risk bringing Marinette into first class just yet, he was planning to spend the next day teaching her a six hour period of etiquette in hopes of impressing his upper class peers.

"Then I suggest you wake up and save the dream for when we're _married_ ," Chloé interjected. "We'll be having dinner in two hours."

Hearing this, Anna and Gwen rushed to their cabins for their evening dresses. Lady Allan called after them as they bumped into each other through the doorway.

"Remember ladies, self control!"

Stopping, Anna went first while Gwen let her older sister aside before she herself followed Anna in the proper ladylike pose of walking. Taking slow ballerina like steps, they and their mother left Chloé and Adrien alone in the room.

"I was wondering about that girl, Marinette."

"Forget about her, I don't think her story is worth interesting."

"But what about dinner?"

"Tomorrow, maybe. I never promised anything. It was simply an offer."

"An offer? Do you realize that you told her she could come to dinner sometime during the voyage."

Chloé grinned.

"Yes, I said 'perhaps.'"

Adrien felt like he had exposed his day in third class with Marinette, but he was thankful that he had only told Chloé half the truth. He went back to B-56 to write in his diary and prepare for dinner, almost hearing Chloé mutter "Maybe I should have given her the $20," as he made his way out the door.

* * *

In the afternoon, Gabriel sat in the smoking room with Isaac Lehmann and Maurice Medbury, a dealer in antique jewelry over the discussion of Adrien's predisposed marriage to Chloé.

"The purpose of university," he explained. "is to find a suitable wife. Adrien has already done that."

"I dare say," Lehmann looked upset about an uncertain topic. "I heard from the first officer that we are not traveling at full speed."

"It must be due to economic reasons," replied Medbury, who looking just about as bored as his fellow man.

"True," said Gabriel. "Perhaps our fellow Harvard graduate, Mr. Edwin William Friend can teach you many things about preservation, like the ship's coal or food supply."

Looking over his right shoulder for a brief thought, Gabriel spotted the twenty eight year old man, whom he believed, was for a fact the person in question.

"Speaking of which, here he comes now."

Mr. Friend greeted the trio with his best impression of being formal.

"Hello, gentlemen, I was hoping I could discuss business instead of war for a change. You three seem uninterested, so I thought I could introduce myself."

"I know who you are," interjected Gabriel. "You are Professor Edwin Friend from Harvard."

"How did you guess?"

"I might have seen your name in the passenger list."

Gabriel liked to be secretive. In reality when finding a school for Adrien, he had heard the name from a list of professors who had graduated from the school and taught there in Indic philology. He was travelling with Theodate Pope Riddle for the purpose of funding a psychical research organization for English Society for Psychical Research.

"Well then, perhaps Theodate and I could interest you in a lecture on classics? Maybe that will get your mind off of the war."

"No thank you," Gabriel apologized. "I was just about leaving for dinner. Perhaps we can discuss your lecture on classics then."

"What a good idea," replied the young professor. "Maybe then I can address it to everybody in the dining hall."

Lehmann and Medbury laughed at what they thought seemed like a boastful joke. Professor Friend would eventually give his lecture at dinner, though his only audience that actually listened to hear him speak at his table were Miss Pope, Dr. James Houghton and Marie Depage, who were on their way to find medical help on the Western Front.

* * *

In the second class lounge, Canadian newspaperman Ernest Cowper spoke with his publisher Richard Rogers about the former's telling interview with Elbert Hubbard up in first class.

"What did you talk to him about?" asked Rogers.

"The usual stuff, he told me he was on his way to see the Kaiser."

Rogers felt impatient at wanting to know more and more about what was going on behind the enemy lines.

"The Americans of course, want no involvement in the war but there are more Canadians wanting to join the British through the Corps. You should enlist too as a reporter for their own newspaper."

"Sir, I would prefer not to push myself into the battlefield just so I can grab a story. I'd rather wait until everything is ready."

"Ready for what? A truce? As your employer, I will decide what is best for you or anyone else in my company. If you can convince Hubbard that we are ready to help the British, will we do everything we can to make this war as short as possible."

Cowper stiffly nodded, but he had one final request before leaving the room.

"He did tell me one thing."

"Is it that important?" asked Rogers, smiling for the right answer.

"'The Germans have done some darned bad things since the war started, but I don't believe they're all that bad.'"

But of course, the darkest part of the journey was yet to come.


	6. A Formal Dinner and a Wild Party

Monday, May 3rd, 1915

"I didn't care too much for all the Luminism and Cubism in the world if I wanted to leave my culture behind for a new one. I wanted to try something that had a little more of heart into it."

Marinette was explaining more and more of her life story as _Lusitania_ sailed her way into the afternoon. Her morning efforts at etiquette, taught by Adrien, discombobulated her over a list of social graces like how to eat, how to walk and how to sit, even using hankies when she had to sneeze. Despite the cold weather from the wind and some patches of rain, the two were spending their afternoon on the boat deck. Adrien's increasing knowledge of his newfound companion grew so much, it was almost as if he had known Marinette all his life.

"Why can't I be like you, Marinette? Living in a garret, poor but free?"

"You wouldn't last three days in a garret," Marinette humored him. "There's no hot water, no waiters, no...servants, no wine...and hardly any caviar or egg soup."

"Actually," said Adrien with disgust on his face. "I do not like caviar and I am too young for wine. I do not care about servants or anything else you just said, my hands were made for work."

"What do you want to work for?"

"There is something in me, Marinette. I can feel it. I do not even know if I should become an artist or a dancer. I might want to ask Charles Frohman if I can act on the stage...if my father lets me."

He held his hands together at the mention of him, lowering his head as he did. Marinette placed her right hand on his left shoulder.

"You should tell you father that...and if he says 'no', try to convince him more until he admits it."

They passed onto the second class promenade, where Theodore and Belle Naish were taking pictures of themselves. It was Theodore's turn to take a picture of his wife by the deck, but Adrien suddenly came into view and stood tragically by the rail. Theodore chuckled and took the picture of Adrien instead. This was followed by a collage of photographs: Marinette pretending to be a courtesan, Adrien in a look of disdain and boredom while she pleaded and Belle was pretending to be a damsel in distress in the middle of a western shootout. It was such a fun day, but it nearly made Marinette forget about manners for the upcoming dinner.

Later as the sun began to set, Adrien and Marinette were leaning on the A-deck rail aft. She was just about explaining further details about her life, all the way up to her job at the Port of Calais.

"We should go there sometime," Adrien sighed romantically. "Drink beer, ride the rides if they have a fair there, and ride the surf on the fastest yacht around."

"I could also try horse-back riding," said Marinette with ambition.

"You are going to have to side saddle."

"Side saddling is for the girls your world, I want to do it like a real cowboy."

"And what next?" Adrien smiled. "Spit like a man?"

Marinette smiled in a silly way when she heard this. Without warning, she hawked her mouth and threw a big glob of spit into the ocean.

"Your turn."

Adrien screwed up his mouth and spitted.

"Pitiful!" Marinette criticized. "You gotta hawk it down, roll it on your tongue, up to the front, like this, then a big breath and blow it!"

Adrien went through the steps, he let out two big comets of glob flying into the water. All of a sudden they were interrupted by the harsh stern voice of Gabriel, who had been watching them with the stiff-legged Charles Frohman, Ogden Hammond and George Vernon.

"What is all this?! Spitting?! In public?!"

Adrien turned and tried to calm him down.

"Sorry, Father. But I would like you to meet someone. Her name is Marinette Cheng."

"Charmed, I am sure."

Adrien proceeded with the introductions as Marinette wiped a spot of spit from the left side of her chin off with her right hand. He would later write the following passage in his diary:

" _The other men were gracious and curious about the girl who had saved my life. But my father, a supremacist that he was, looked at her like an animal. A wild Chinese animal that had to be killed quickly._ "

"Well, Miss Marinette," said Frohman. "It sounds like you are the perfect girl to stand around in a sticky spot."

Then suddenly, Vernon Livermore the bugler struck up a tune and everyone else laughed when Frohman said.

"Why do they always insist on announcing dinner like a damn cavalry charge?"

"Shall we go dress, Father?" Adrien asked, and the two hurried back to their cabins before the younger Agreste turned back to the girl.

"I'll see you a dinner Marinette."

Marinette waved her right hand back at him in return. Frohman liberated her from her dreamy romantic thoughts with a shout of "Young lady!"

Marinette faced him with a dull expression.

"Do you have any idea what you are doing? You are about to enter a world of high society and you are not even dressed for the part."

He spoke like a director trying to find an actress that would play the role of a first class woman beautifully.

"I'm sure Miss Jolivet could lend you a dress."

He escorted her back inside through the grand entrance.

In Miss Jolivet's cabin, D-15, which was disappointingly small, Frohman stood outside like a true gentleman and wishing he was back in his cabin looking over new scripts as Rita and Marinette went through whatever evening dresses suited the girl's fancy. The older woman felt like a costumer preparing a young actress for one of her films as she went through her belongings in a suitcase.

"It is rather large," she said to a red dress with black beads. "But I am sure it will fit you just fine."

Marinette slipped through the dress and it fit her like a glove. Rita smiled and directed Marinette at the mirror.

"I look like a ladybug with these colors," she said breathlessly.

Rita took this as a compliment.

"And a very beautiful ladybug as well. One that enchants the audience with her wings and takes her into a world of beautiful insects."

At the D-Deck landing of the staircase, Marinette's breath was taken away by the stairs of white walls and red carpeting. Rita had gone on ahead of her and now she felt alone, giving her a six minutes amount of extra time to practice the balance of being a proper lady. Two gilded-cage elevators brought Lady Allan and her daughters to the floor. Anna and Gwen saw Marinette and waved at her girlishly, but with grace and poise. They were joined by Gabriel and Chloé who descended from the stairs, but neither of them recognized her in that dress.

It was then she saw Adrien, smiling in his black suit at the top of the stairs. He looked perfect, stunning and all the more gentlemanly with his hair combed. Taking slow, careful steps, he saw Marinette under her Gibson girl hairdo (fixed by Miss Jolivet herself) and when he reached the final step, his right hand took Marinette's and his lips moved to the back of her glove, kissing it as he was trained to do.

"I saw my father doing the same thing with Lady Allan before we left port and I was willing to do it."

Marinette giggled.

"Shall we go to dinner, my lady?"

"Let's shall."

And with that, the perfect couple strolled their way towards Gabriel and Chloé. Adrien tapped his left index finger against his father's left shoulder. The two turned to face the unlikely couple.

"Chloé, surely you remember Miss Cheng?"

Chloé, caught off guard, studied her.

"Cheng...? Amazing! You could almost pass for a lady."

Through the doors, they entered the gorgeous two floor dining room in style where they met up with Rita and Frohman. They both grinned upon seeing Marinette and walked next to her.

"Nothing to it, is there Marinette?" Frohman smiled.

"Yes," Marinette replied in a low voice. "You dress like a princess and act like you have all the money in the world."

Adrien pointed out several notables, somewhat introducing Marinette to a cast of characters with separate backgrounds, albeit brief with some interesting facts.

"There's Lady Mackworth," he whispered, turning over to each person coming his way. "And...that's Alfred Gwynne Vanderbuilt III...the richest man in America and on this ship. Over there, that is Paul Crompton. His oldest son Stephen is around my age and is the loudest out of all the children. Because of that, I heard Theodate Pope Riddle the architect had to move to another cabin. And that is Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice. The first Mrs. Hubbard is at home with four of his children of course. And over here we have Caroline Hickson Kennedy and Kathryn Hickson, they are in the fashion business, among their many talents. Very popular with my father's business."

The Hickson sisters, engrossed by Adrien's handsomeness, looked at him like a prize show animal.

"Congratulations, Chloé, he is splendid."

Gabriel, who had been discussing fashion with executive Oscar Grab of the Max Grab Fashion Company and Mr. Schwarcz, also shared his compliments.

"My son looks better in reality than in his photographs," he joked.

"Chloé Bourgeois is a lucky woman," added Mr. Grab. "I may not know her well like the Hickson sisters, but I assume it is luck."

Mr. Grab, aware of Gabriel's anti-Semitic ways, tried not to act Jewish in the least bit possible. As a former citizen of Austro-Hungary, an ally of the German Empire, he was intending to keep his nationality disclosed until the end of the voyage.

Further inside the dining room, they ran into the Bilickes, who had just gone through the ornate double doors. Adrien brought Marinette over to them.

"Albert, Gladys, I would like you to meet Marinette Cheng."

Marinette shook Gladys' hand with a "How do you do?". When she came to Albert, he asked.

"Chinese, am I right?"

She nodded coquettishly.

"Have you ever been to Shanghai, I heard their municipality is filled with people from all over the world."

"No," Marinette denied in a doubtful voice. "I've only been around Lanzhou. I have heard of Shanghai and, even though I haven't been there, I guess it is beautiful."

They moved to the center of the dining room. The capped dome of white plaster and oval framed frescos depicting the four seasons granted the atmosphere of a ballroom at a grand palace, alive and lit by a constellation of light fixtures on the walls, full of elegantly dressed people and beautiful music from a five man orchestra. It felt opulent with a higher dining experience compared to White Star's superliners.

Adrien's lack of a description was superseded by an account of Marinette's actions in his diary.

" _She must have been nervous but she never faltered. They assumed she was one of them... a young heiress to a shipbuilding industry perhaps... new money, obviously, but still a member of the club. Father of course, could always be counted upon..._ "

Marinette was seated opposite to Adrien in the central table of the room, who was flanked by Chloé, Gabriel, Lady Allan, Rita, Frohman, Max Schwarcz, Mr and Mrs. Bilicke, Gwen and Anna and Captain Turner. Gabriel was the first to break the illusion in the form of a seemingly innocent question.

"Tell us about the accommodations in steerage, Miss Cheng. I hear they are quite good on this ship."

Marinette's undaunted face was met with a serendipitous answer.

"The best I have seen, sir. Hardly any rats or dogs."

Everyone else laughed as Adrien gestured to Marinette to take the napkin off of her plate. Chloé calmed the laughter down with her response.

"Miss Cheng is indeed joining us from the third class. She was of some assistance to my fiancée three nights ago."

Adrien leaned his hands on the table, his voice clear.

"It turns out that Miss Cheng is quite a fine artist. She was kind enough to show me some of her work yesterday."

Chloé spoke to Marinette like a child as the meals were being served.

"This is an oyster," she said holding a clam in her right hand.

Adrien moved her arm down in petty annoyance while the others exchanged whispers and furtive glances at Marinette. This was becoming dangerous for her, even more dangerous than fighting the enemy with a bayonet. She could even hear Albert Bilicke speaking low to his wife.

"What is Chloé hoping to prove by bringing a Chinese bohemian up here?"

"Perhaps," said Schwarcz, overhearing them. "Gabriel is trying to find a new designer for next year's spring collection."

Thomas and Edgar Baldwin, both of them first waiters, delivered the food. Thomas leaned close to Marinette as he dipped caviar on his plate.

"How do you take your caviar, madam?"

"No caviar for me thank you. I never liked fish eggs."

Chloé answered for her.

"Just a soupcon of lemon on mine. It helps with the flavor."

Gabriel glanced back at Marinette, asking her as innocently as he could without trying to sound rude.

"Where exactly do you live, Miss Cheng?"

Marinette, considering herself as a traveler at the most, had not need to mention her birthplace until later.

"Well, right now my address is the RMS _Lusitania_ , and after that I am on God's good humor."

Annoyed that Marinette had scored a point, Gabriel pressed her further. He could not believe how a girl so poor could find so many opportunities as he asked.

"How is it that you have means to travel without any money?"

"I work my way from place to place, even coming to America aboard the _Teutonic_. But I won my ticket on _Lusitania_ at a very lucky hand in poker."

This caused everyone else's eyebrows, except Adrien's, to rise. Captain Turner seconded the notion with his own experience at card games.

"All life is a game of luck, but in all my years at sea, I never knew that I had so much luck as the master of many of Cunard's vessels, including this one."

"A real man makes his own salary," Chloé praised him. "Right, Cheng?"

Salad was served and Adrien helped Marinette find the salad fork by prompting her with his eyes. She was changing forks as Gabriel asked her again.

"Do you often find that rootless existence appealing?"

Marinette's following words became a source of inspiration that conjoined with the meaning of life itself.

"Well... the world is a big place, and I want to see it all before I go. My father was always talking about going to see the ocean. He died in the village he was born in, and never received his chance to see it. You can't wait around in one place, because you never know what hand you're going to get dealt next. See, my parents died in a flood from the Yellow River when I was five, and I've been on the road since, heading to Venice, Vienna, Paris...and all those other cities without any other living relatives. Something like that teaches you to take life as it comes at you and that you have to respect it for what it is. Life is a gift and I do not intend on wasting it. To make each day count."

"Well said, Marinette," Rita nodded.

Adrien raised his glass and everyone else, save for Gabriel and Chloé, made a toast.

"To make it count."

By 8:00 PM, desert was being served and Frohman was making comedic remarks about his career on the stage.

"So Barrie finds me a young girl and I ask 'who will she be playing?' and then he says, 'Peter Pan'."

Amongst the light chuckles of the Allan sisters, Adrien whispered to Marinette through her right ear.

"Next it will be brandies in the Smoking Room. After that, they retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on being masters of the universe."

"Anyone else want to join me for a brandy, gentlemen?" asked Gabriel.

The men at the table prepared to leave before Rita stood up to ask.

"Care to join us in the reading room, Marinette? You don't to stay out here with the men, do you?"

"No thanks," Marinette waved her right hand neglectfully. "I'd better get back."

"It probably would not interest you anyway," said Chloé, standing as Sabrina came to fetch her. "Fashion doesn't seem to be your interest, but it would be good of you to come."

Marinette silently agreed to her statement. Proper lady talk in her mind was as dull as an overcast sky. She leaned to Adrien, who was, obviously, too young to be with the other gentlemen, smoking like a professional.

"Must you go, Marinette?"

"I know how you feel, Adrien, but my coach is about to turn into a pumpkin."

The sense of fairy tale humor was coupled with Marinette's own kiss to Adrien's right hand. And no sooner was she out the door when Adrien spotted a piece of paper that she had written while he was eating the salad. It read:

"To make it count, meet me outside."

Adrien was alone at the table and he thought it was best to see what other tricks Marinette had up her sleeve to bring his night to an exciting conclusion. He left the table and he found Marinette standing in front of the stairs just as the note promised him.

She slowly turned her body towards him and then she asked.

"So do you wanna to go to a real party?"

A large party was taking place in the third class dining room, with Ivan leading the impromptu band on fiddle, accordion, violin, piano and tambourine. Alive with loud music, laughter, drinking, flirting, gaming and a test of talent, they kept the Celtic spirit intact with their way of culture and shipboard life. Alya found Marinette to be a stunning sight in her dress while she danced with Nathanaël after Alix was finished with her turn.

Mylène handed Adrien a pint of root beer and he hoisted it while two Russian passengers, Jakim Babeicz and Matthew Backa asked him if he spoke their language above the din, while Carolina Andersdotter asked him if he spoke Swedish. Adrien, surprised by the amount of foreign passengers in steerage, made a simple reply.

"I can't understand any of you."

He was lucky to have been taught the Chinese language as part of his educational studies. He would have loved to share some of his Chinese with Marinette, but she was too busy dancing the tarantella with Frank Hook.

Another song, "John Ryan's Polka" began with the stomping of ten footsteps before the rest of the music played, allowing Marinette to end her dance with Frank.

"I'm going to dance with him now, alright?"

Dragged from his chair, Adrien was locked into Marinette's arms. Despite several tales of dancing within the first class areas of any ship, it was considered improper for saloon passengers to dance in public, no matter how good they were. Adrien knew that he was in the right place, but was completely unprepared.

"I can't do this," he tried apologizing to Marinette.

But Marinette moved her right hand onto his left.

"Then we're going to have to get closer, like this."

She looked back at the boy who smiled when she said.

"You're still my best boy, Frank!"

"Thank you," Frank called back and he scampered off to dance with his sister.

Annie and Thomas Marsh danced to the steps of the sean-nós, Marinette watching them as Adrien looked over his left shoulder.

"I don't know the steps of that one."

"Just follow me and you'll go with it. Don't think."

They started slow at first, then when the band picked up a chord, they got the hang of it. Marinette went solo, tapping her feet to the traditional riverdance. Adrien copied the steps, then again as the others cheered for this new professional. Then they locked their hands together and spun around the fray, faster, faster and faster until they came to a jerk. A stupefied Adrien, more dizzy from the spin than Marinette, cobbled over to the nearby table like a drunkard.

In the Reading and Writing Room, located on A-Deck near the Grand Staircase, Chloé and the Hickson sisters were picking up from dinner about their discussion on fashion. The room was quiet compared to the party going on four decks below, the presence of upper class women providing a lifeless quality of typical rich snoots who had their noses so high up in the air, that they would get sick of being conditioned within the luxurious walls. But none of them minded, and neither did Chloé, who looked at the clock on the bookshelf.

"I'd better check on Adrien."

She was about to leave, but was stopped by Sabrina, her face meek with regret after curiously following the said boy to third class.

"I do not think you will like this," she cringed.

Chloé was in no mood for patience.

"Whatever it is, just take me to him."

And she stormed out of the reading room, the Hickson sisters taken aback by her presumptuous display.

Back in the dining room, Alix was in the middle of a wrestling match between herself and sixteen year old Kahraman Petronsian as Michael Doyle handed Adrien's pint of root beer back to him. Marinette grabbed fresh one from nearby and took a swig. She looked over and stared at Adrien gulping down the last drop.

"What? You think a first class boy can't drink?" he asked as the effects of the alcohol burned in his throat.

Theodore Diamandis, a Greek, had been spinning so much from the dance that he bumped into Adrien, spilling some of Marinette's root beer onto his suit. The Greek man excused himself in his native language and collapsed to the floor, out cold with his eyes closed.

By then, Kahraman had gained the upper hand on Alix's match, but she wasn't about to accept defeat. Her left fist pounded the table in a furious chant.

"Come on! Two more!"

She made two fingers in her right hand, believing that the young Mr. Petronsian did not understand English. Adrien took a fresh cigarette from the ash tray on the table and took a whiff with a presentation of his boastful personality. Having seen the ballet Giselle encouraged him to become a dancer, but his father was against the notion seeing his son act like a young lady in a tutu skirt with no mature quality. Pushing it into the dark caverns of his mind, he though that now seemed like the best time to show off.

"So! You think you're all big and tough? Let me see you do this."

He removed his coat jacket and handed it to Marinette. The floor was firm and he assumed a ballet stance, arms raised and taking every muscle of his toes at an incredible control of pace. Slowly but surely, he felt himself rise like the angels of above granting peace to the wounded soldiers on the front. But as if he were shot by the enemy, his closed eyelids dared themselves not to open until finally, his front toes began to burn.

"Ow!" he added with a laugh.

Marinette caught him as he lost his balance, and everyone cracked up. Katherine Coughlin, however was appalled, if not shocked in spite of her husband John's hilarious reaction to the scene as she uttered.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What a display!" she cried, covering her baby Jeremiah's eyes.

"Are you all right?" Marinette asked him.

"I'm fine," Adrien confessed. "I never knew I could do that."

From the entrance came Chloé and Sabrina on the warpath. Several of the passengers stared at either her beauty or her enraged face, taking little notice of Sabrina.

"Cooo, looks like we've got a furie in here!" shouted seven year old Leonard Goodall.

His parents laughed at his naivety but Chloé was not laughing at all when she saw Adrien with Marinette, laughing and holding each other in the time of their lives.

It was sadly interrupted, however, when Chloé grabbed Adrien's right elbow and took him away with sweet, yet sour tone of a motherly reminder.

"All right, party's over! Time for bed, Adrihoney!"

"But-"

Adrien could not control his body as his viewpoint saw himself being dragged away from Marinette, who stared back, helpless, but understanding that he couldn't stay in her world too long. With quick thoughts, she found the nerve to go after him, but he was gone. Back to his world. A world that would be disrupted by the forces of darkness and dragged under to the very bottom where the devils from the deep resided...along with hers.


	7. Forbidden

Tuesday, May 4th, 1915

Adrien and Chloé were having Mariage Frères tea and crumpets for breakfast in B-54, the dining room of the port side regal suite. The morning was bright and sunny compared to the abysmal weather of two days in a row. Gwen and Anna waited in their cabins, dressing themselves for the day with their mother's help. The silent tension was palpable with Nino pouring the milk into Adrien's glass. At last, Adrien spoke.

"Chloé, can we at least talk about something else?"

But Chloé had her eyes closed, arms and crossed and nose so high above her neck, she could have breathed in a whiff of the ceiling. Opening her right eye, then the next, finally facing her head towards Adrien, her response was low.

"I don't want you to see her again, Adrien, do you understand me?"

Adrien's face was something she had not seen before, one with courage and strength against those who denied him of the life he truly wanted.

"Chloé, as much as I understand why, I can go wherever I like aboard this ship. I am not a soldier from one of your father's squadrons in the French Army that you can command...I am your fiancée."

He rose his voice at the last word, but Chloé just laughed and flipped the table over like the cheeky brat she truly was.

"You are my fiancée," she said her voice turning from sweet to sour as she spoke. "Also known as my husband in practice."

Adrien cringed at her words. The flaxen haired maiden of fury was glowering over him and gripping the sides of his chair. He was trapped between her arms.

"As the law requires," Chloé went on, "You have to honor me the way a husband is required to honor a wife because I will not be made a fool of. Do you understand?"

Adrien nodded, hoping that it would quell her emotions, but it did not. She was red in the face and was continuing to glower over him until it looked like his chair was about to fall over.

"Now I don't care where you go or what you do for the rest of this voyage, but you stay away from those ruffians down below...and Miss Cheng as well."

Heartbroken, Adrien shrank in his chair. Chloé went off to get dressed, turning around at the same time she Nino standing partway through the doorway with an odd face.

"Oh, and Nino...clean up the mess."

She stalked past the houseboy, leaving for the bedroom. Nino observed the damage and asked.

"What happened here?"

Adrien was not as to expose the truth, he just sprouted fresh tears as Nino helped him up.

"We had an accident. Sorry Nino."

In the bedroom of the port suite, after Albert and Gladys were finished dressing, Gabriel helped Adrien with his black tie, his white shirt being the only light color of his dark blue Serge suit. The tightness of the suit did not inhibit Adrien's fury as his father scolded him.

"Chloe told me what had happened, and for that, you are not to see that girl again."

"But Father, she's so nice and...talented...not to mention-"

Before he could mention her beauty, Gabriel tightened the tie, nearly choking his son intentionally.

"And she is Chinese. The situation of world is precarious, you know the Chinese are just about as neutral as we are."

Adrien rolled his eyes at this. He had heard this from the Fourth of August, around the same time the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

"Of course I know that our countries are neutral. The same goes for Argentina and Switzerland above others."

Upon the other thought, he added.

"But what better way to marry somebody who actually understands you and whose native country is not at war like all others in Europe?"

"I do not care," Gabriel went from draconian to slightly emotional. "When your mother died, the company spared no expense on her funeral. In addition, she was a gambler who left nothing but a legacy of debts hidden under the pseudonym 'Peacock' and that name is the only card we have to play."

Adrien slumped his shoulders. The thought of his mother being a gambler was becoming a trait, except he was becoming rebellious. It was something that his father did not want him to be, let alone ending up in a similar situation like her illness. The boy tried to reason with his father again.

"Maybe she had her reasons."

"I never understood her," Gabriel shook his head before resuming his reasons. "It is a fine match with Chloé. Her country may be at war, but the French have enough money to ensure our survival, and our support of the war."

The ever pacifistic Adrien could not accept the task of being married to a noble girl who was spoiled rotten and came from a country at war with the Central Powers while his remained neutral. If he could find a way to love Marinette despite her limited means, he would not have the urge to go against everything his father taught him, factual or not.

He clenched his fists as he found the ounce of valor in his heart, overcoming the hurt and loss of reality staring at him in the form of his father.

"How can you put this on my shoulders? Marinette has opened my eyes to a world beyond all of this, and all you ever think about is money? What about my needs? What if I do not want to marry Chloé in the future?"

"Not marry her? Son, what has come over you? You are acting selfish."

"Me? Selfish?" Adrien blew a sharp breath from his nostrils before continuing with his upper class version of a rant. "There is more to life than money, and if you are so interested in it, why don't you hire Marinette as a designer for the company?"

But this only infuriated Gabriel, whose employers were purely non-Asians under his belief that Europeans and fellow Americans had a better taste in fashion.

"I will not have anyone associate my company with that...chink! It would ruin our prospects even further to the Gabriel brand and no matter how talented she is at being an artist or a designer, a destitute chink is what she is and that is what she will always be."

Feeling his ears bleed at this, Adrien cringed even further when Gabriel directed his right index finger at his face.

"Now read my lips: you are not to see that chink ever again!"

* * *

Chink, the derogatory slur used by some people to other persons who were born of Chinese nationality. And speaking of a certain Chinese girl, Marinette arrived looking less dapper than she was before in front of the doors to the first class dining saloon, only to be stopped by the chief steward, John Frederick Valentine Jones. He stepped in front of the girl, apparently not recognizing her from the previous night.

"Excuse me miss, but this is the first class dining saloon. If you are looking for the third class dining room, it is forward close to the bow."

"I was here last night, don't you remember me?"

"No, miss I am afraid I do not. Good day, madam."

Sabrina, who had been sitting nearby, found a better way to sort the matter out.

"She'll tell you," Marinette said to the chief steward as Sabrina closed the door behind her.

"Mr. Agreste and Miss Bourgeois have been kind enough to accept your assistance with the Master Agreste, but I am afraid your presence will not be needed anymore."

Marinette groaned, realizing her mistake. But she was not about to give up just yet.

"Can I please speak to Adrien for just one quick second?"

"I also like to remind you that you hold a third class ticket," Sabrina added with reason. "So I suggest you get back to where you belong and stay there with your own kind."

Marinette felt like an alien (or at least that was how Sabrina was looking at her now). At the nodding of Chief Steward Jones' insistence, she turned on her heels and walked sadly away...but she knew there was more than one way of getting up to first class.

* * *

Captain Turner began his Tuesday by offering the Agreste-Allan party a formal tour of the bridge, the chart room and the engine room. Second Officer Percy Hefford marked the ship's distance from Liverpool on the map and calculated that they would reach the English Channel three days from today at approximately 11:00 AM. His significant attention to the map was disrupted by the tour, looking over his right shoulder to see Turner offering the wheel to Gabriel Agreste.

"Would you like to try your hand at the wheel, sir?"

"I shouldn't think so," Gabriel frowned. "It is your position, not mine."

Before leaving, Adrien, daring himself not to touch the starboard engine telegraph, made himself look feisty in front of Quartermaster Hugh Johnson as his right index finger touched it anyway.

A race was going on in third class with Frank Hook taking the lead. It gave Marinette an opportunity to leave, seeing how distracted the stewards were. Alya and Alix followed her to the stern, the former trying to talk Marinette out of it.

"He's god amongst mortal boys his own age and there's no denying it. But he's in another world, Marinette. Forget him. He's closed the door."

"Actually," Marinette stopped and turned to face her counterclockwise. "It was his father and fiancée who shut the door, not him."

Reluctant, Alya sighed and Alix pushed Marinette up to the B-Deck promenade, crouching down as she did. Marinette scrambled nimbly over the railing, almost hearing the sorry voices of her friends down below.

"That girl is not being logical I tell you."

"Love has no logic."

She found William Hodges and his wife Sarah watching their two little boys, William Jr. and Dean, playing backgammon. Sarah Hodges' shawl and hat were lying on a steamer chair nearby. Marinette, thinking that the Chief Steward would recognize her, calmly picked up the shawl and hat and slipped them on, pushing her hair back as she walked further down the deck. At a distance, she could pass for a lady's maid. She seemed doubtless as to how Mrs. Hodges would react to the theft of these two items.

On the boat deck, Adrien counted the lifeboats that came his way, going slower as he counted the sum in his head as well as the capacity mentioned by Captain Turner. He was fortunate enough to run into Marinette by Lifeboat 5, but he did not recognize her at first when she pulled him into the A-Deck cabins, right outside A-31. They were completely alone, not knowing if any of the occupants would be listening.

"Marinette, this is impossible. I can't see you."

Marinette pulled him back before he reached the door.

"I need to talk to you...about us."

Adrien tried to resume his normal self, looking depressed but confident beneath that handsome façade.

"About ourselves? Marinette...Father and Chloé don't want me to see you anymore. He called you a...chink."

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see Marinette's reaction of anger to the offensive name. But, surprisingly, she was calm with a concerned face.

"Adrien...that's what they're all like. But you're much better than them. In fact, you are the most amazing and astounding young man I have ever known."

Uninterested, Adrien turned to leave through the door, but again Marinette held him back, less forcefully this time.

"I just end wanted to let you know that I am not a retard, I have ten American dollars to my name, I nothing to offer you but words and I know how the world works."

"If you are trying to sympathize with me, Marinette, you are wasting your time. I am fine."

But Marinette saw through the pain in his eyes. She pointed her left index finger outside to represent the people of Adrien's world.

"They've got you trapped, Adrien and if you don't break free you're gonna die. Why else would you try to jump off the ship if you hated that life so much?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Just let me go."

Marinette relaxed herself, unsure if Adrien was making the right decision.

"You're right...only you can do that."

Adrien smiled solemnly and went back outside. Marinette, concerned for his future, left the corridor as well, but not before leaving the hat on a bench, hoping that Mrs. Hodges would find it and reclaim it.

* * *

In the lounge, one of the most elegant rooms on the ship, Adrien sat glumly at a four chair table with his father and two Bostonians, Charles Lauriat, the bookseller, and Lothrop Withington, genealogist from Newburyport. Both men agreed that Lusitania was a belligerent ship, unlikely of being attacked. Adrien darted his eyes at them, then left, then right, until the feeling of boredom was coming back to him for the second time.

"Did you hear about the ship's nautical run?" Lauriat asked Gabriel. "We have only logged about four hundred and eighty four miles in the last twenty four hours."

"At least the ship's printers are trying to keep us entertained with their stories," Gabriel sipped his herbal tea with pressed lips. "But as I was saying about the groomsmen's tuxedos, Adrien decided he wanted green if the wedding was to be in held in the spring, but I preferred the usual black with patches bearing the French and American flags on their coats for a more patriotic approach."

As Gabriel went on with other details of the wedding, like the questioning as to whether or not make the cake angel's food or devil's food, Adrien looked over at a table where Amy Pearl and her five year old son Stuart were having cookies. Mrs. Pearl corrected her son's posture and finally helped him to place a napkin on his lap the right way. It reminded Adrien of himself the month after his mother died, remembering his father's heart turning so cold, that he spent the next two weeks under a relentless conditioning of etiquette in Gabriel's own way snapping his son out of mourning. Adrien knew that while the young Stuart still had his mother, he himself knew that this was not the life he wanted.

His head went back to his father's friends and he asked them.

"How is business in China?"

"Well, I hear President Shikai is planning to bring monarchy back to China," replied Withington. "But I believe that will not be for some time until he has made the right transactions with the government."

Adrien's fears of his father getting upset over the implication of Marinette remained unsummoned by Lauriat bringing up a new topic.

"I wonder if the Duchess of Marlborough has any relatives fighting in or supporting the war."

"You should tell Mr. Vanderbilt about it," Gabriel joined in. "He is her first cousin after all."

Finding a clever way out of his father's company without any notification of absence, Adrien asked again.

"What time is it?"

"Half past six," Withington checked his watch.

"I'd better rest up for tomorrow," Adrien said as he stood up.

"So soon?" his father asked suspiciously. "What about dinner?"

"I will have it in the cabin," Adrien replied, and he left for the door without so much as a "good evening" to his father's friends.

* * *

The sky was of purple and gold when Adrien arrived at the bow, she could see Marinette, lost in her thoughts of looking down into the water.

"Hello, Marinette."

His voice reached her ears, turning her head over her left shoulder.

"I thought about what you said and I have decided that we should be together when the time is right."

Marinette smiled, believing that the time would be now, but Adrien had been indirectly referring to the ship's final destination. He walked closer to her with gracious steps and it was Marinette who spoke next.

"Well, for the time being, I suggest you close your eyes."

Without questioning her, Adrien obeyed as Marinette instructed her. She took his arms from behind as she helped her onto the railing. His right foot went first on the bottom rail, then his left. In three tedious movements, both of his feet were on the railing at the very end of the bow like an impromptu figurehead.

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

His eyes not daring to peek whatsoever, Adrien replied.

"I trust you."

Marinette took his hands and raised them until he was standing with his arms outstretched on each side. Adrien went along with her. When she lowered her hands, his arms stayed up... like wings.

"All right, open your eyes..."

Adrien did and his eyes widened with a smile at the sight beyond his vision. There was no sign of the forecastle or the railing in front of them. No ship at all, only the wind and waters of the Atlantic.

"I am flying, Marinette! I am flying!"

Marinette tipped her face into his flowing hair. The magical moment of the ship gliding through the calm waves merged into a power of force and optimism. Her fingers caressed with his as her voice hummed along with the wind.

Adrien turned his head until his lips were near hers. He lowered his arms, turning further, until he found her mouth with his. She wrapped her arms around his from behind, and in a moment separated from time and space they kissed with his head turned and tilted back, surrendering to her, to the emotion, to the inevitable. The kiss lasted for what seemed like an hour, slowly and tremulously, and then with building passion.

From the crow's nest, Seaman Frank Hennessey spied on them through his binoculars. But his friend, Lookout Thomas Quinn, nudged his focus back towards the horizon.

The two lovers embraced as the kiss carried them away (mentally) into the air. Little did they know that it would be the last time _Lusitania_ would ever see such a grand sight.


	8. The Drawing

Wednesday, May 5th, 1915

The next day, after Chloé and Gabriel left for first service lunch, Adrien took Marinette to B-51, the lounge of the starboard side Regal Suite.

"It's quite proper, I assure you," he said, introducing the exquisite detail of the room to her. "This is the sitting room."

Marinette hardly lingered at the mahogany paneled suite, her eyes directed at _The Lyrical Landscape_ , which Adrien had placed on the right side wall only yesterday before going to bed. Having changed at a marginal rate thanks to Marinette's words, he thought the room needed more color...or perhaps it reminded him of Marinette and all artwork she had done in the previous five years of her life.

"Isn't that use of color great?" she asked.

"Yes, it's extraordinary," Adrien replied. "Sir Hugh Lane gave it to me."

Marinette's eyes went wide. In her studies as an artist and a designer, she knew that the person in question was an art collector, and she was hoping that some of his possessions would give her inspiration.

"Sir Hugh Lane...of the National Gallery?"

"He's onboard," Adrien nodded.

"Can we see him? at least sneak a peek?" Marinette jittered excitedly.

"We can," Adrien had one idea up his sleeve. "But first, I would like to see you impress him."

He went over to the safe just as Gwen and Anna, who were returning from a near skirmish with Boatswain John Davies, came into the room, laughing quietly to each other. Anna had her white dress splattered with grey paint and was in need of having it cleaned before their mother came back from playing cards with Dr. Fred Pearson and Sir Hugh Lane himself. They stopped when saw Marinette, exchanging glances of confusion and worry.

"What is she doing here?" Gwen asked, recognizing her from two dinners ago.

Adrien, hearing the girls' voices, rushed over to them.

"Uh, I just wanted to show Marinette the room before we disembarked. I mean she never gets an opportunity to see stuff like this."

"Well, she did see the dining room," said Anna with certainty.

"But not the staterooms," Adrien added. "And could you please not tell anyone about this? I do not want Chloé or Father to know until the time is right."

"What time?" the sisters asked in unison.

"When we leave of course," Adrien said politely. "Now why don't you go and play somewhere else?"

"I suppose," Anna wondered. "But let me get changed first."

As Gwen saw to it that Anna had changed out of her paint-spilled dress, Adrien went back to the safe. In the middle of opening the combination, he told Marinette about it's uniqueness.

"Chloé insists on carting this thing everywhere."

Marinette, fearful but visibly undaunted by sudden arrival of the Allan sisters as a foreshadowing, wondered back to him.

"Should we be expecting her or your father any time soon?"

"Not unless if the brandy and gossip hold out."

Adren brought the very object from the safe to Marinette, the ring. Marinette held it, amazed by the details as much as Adrien was the first time he laid his eyes upon it.

"Nice. Is it a jet?"

"A miraculous stone," Adrien said with the voice of a tour guide in a museum. "A very rare stone from worn by the cat goddess Bastet."

They observed the ring for eight seconds, enamored by the wealth of complication.

"Marinette, if you want to impress Sir Lane, I want you to draw me like one of your French boys...wearing only this."

Marinette looked at him, wide-eyed.

"You mean...nude?"

He nodded at the previous innuendo.

After Anna and Gwen left for other activities on the deck, like a game of shuffleboard, Marinette sat on a leather chair in the sitting room, laying out her pencils like surgical tools. Adrien came in wearing black colored robe and he twirled the belt in his left hand like it was a cat's tail.

"The last thing I need for my father's fashion company is another picture of me looking like a mannequin."

He handed her a dime.

"As paying customer," he said in a playful version of a gentleman's tone. "I expect to get what I deserve."

He took his hands on the lapels and pulled them down to his elbows, exposing his chest, his abdomen, his privates and finally the bottom half of his body were in full view of her eyesight. Marinette struggled to hold her breath, preventing herself from laughing.

"Over there on the sofa," she directed him.

So he did, slowly and gracefully, settling like a cat by placing his right leg on the sofa first and relaxed his head on the pillow.

"Tell me when it looks right," she asked Marinette.

The girl directed him sharply on the following directions.

"Put your right hand over your face so I can see the ring. Keep your eyes on me and try to keep still."

Adrien took a deep draw of breath and Marinette began. She drew the top of his head first, taking the easy strokes, nearly distracted by Adrien's deep reply of "So serious".

Marinette continued, looking over her sketchbook every thirty seconds or so to etch Adrien's body into her mind until the drawing started to take on an uncanny appearance.

"I believe you were blushing Miss Big Artist," Adrien teased. "I cannot imagine Mr. Carot blushing."

Marinette stopped and looked over, replying with squinted eyes.

"He does landscapes. Now relax your face."

Adrien sighed again, deeply as Marinette resumed. His face was nearly complete along with his right hand carrying the ring and the fingers covering his face. Followed by sure strokes of his neck, chest and abdomen in the photorealistic detail of reality itself, his pose became languid, his hands were beautiful, and his eyes radiated his energy. It was an image that he would carry for the rest of his life. After he was dressed, Adrien wrote the events in his diary, ending with:

" _My heart was pounding the whole time. It felt like it was the most erotic moment of my life._

 _Before you ask if we did the deed, well...sorry to disappoint you, diary. Marinette was very professional._ "

Back in the sitting room, Adrien leaned over Marinette as she made the finishing touches. The picture was perfect in every way, and all it needed was the cherry on the top.

"Date it, Marinette. I always want to remember this day."

So she did: 5/5/15. Adrien, meanwhile, went to write on a piece of _Lusitania_ stationary. He placed it in the safe before bringing Marinette outside. She was ready to meet a fellow connoisseur of art, with inspiration, critique and a possible place in the National Gallery for all the world to see.

She was ready to meet a fellow connoisseur of art, with inspiration, critique and a possible place in the National Gallery for all the world to see

Sir Lane's cabin, D-26, had only four of the many artworks by Monet, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian placed on the walls. The rest were all in the hold. Adrien took Marinette down to D-Deck just before Nathalie was coming back from a luncheon in the dining saloon with Emily Davis and Annie Walker. Charles Frohman and Frederick Orr-Lewis' valets George Slingsby and William Stainton dined with them over a light meal of hors d'oeuvres and some wine, putting her under a small effect of the drink. Her eyes did not see Adrien going down the hall until it was too late for her to catch a second glace. Sir Lane had also returned from lunch, and had spent no more than three minutes alone in his cabin when Adrien knocked on the door.

"Yes?" he asked, peaking his head through the door. "Agreste's son?"

"Yes. I'd like to introduce you to a fellow artist, her name is Marinette Cheng?"

"Is her artwork valuable?"

"More than that," Marinette tried to control her enthusiasm. "It's exquisite."

While Adrien went back to his room, hoping that the Allan sisters had not told their mother, his father and Chloé about Marinette drawing him like turncoats in the middle of the war they were fighting, Sir Lane sat down in the chair and started to look through Marinette's sketchbook. She sat down on the bed and wobbled her feet as Sir Lane took his time, observing the colorless drawings.

He gazed at the painting, taking in the varying details of the eyes. This was followed by his tedious shifting towards the abs, the nipples, his barely recognizable rib cages and his stomach. It was lucky enough for him that Marinette had only reached Adrien's hips, otherwise he would have written her off as another Henry Scott Tuke, with his artworks of nude children for purposes regarding the human body. Adrien's body, however, seemed smooth and as youthful as her hands and the effort that was put into the creation of the vivid portrait.

At last he confirmed his results.

"It is rather life-like, that is for sure, but I do not believe that erotic art is not exactly what I need for my collection."

Marinette assumed that she was being dejected. Although Sir Lane had praised her for the other works she had done, he could not be fazed by her latest opus.

"Well...thanks anyway."

She walked away, slowly, not even bothering to notice Adrien, who came back from a quick walk on the promenade deck. She was back in her own world by the time he noticed...and he thought it was time to get back to hers. When they met again behind the doors to the D-Deck landing just before dinner, he agreed to put the sketchbook back in the safe. Intentionally, the drawing and the note he had written earlier was intended to be a surprise for Chloé. Rather than having dinner in the first class dining saloon, Adrien spent the rest of the evening with Marinette in third class, telling no one else about the portrait besides Mr. Myers, who was slightly surprised when he heard about the naturist concept.

* * *

In spite of what seemed like a perfect day for the two lovers from two worlds, there were still political elements at work. At 2:00 AM, the three-masted schooner _Earl of Lathom_ found herself in troubled waters with a cargo of bacon and potatoes en route to Liverpool. She did not make at least eight miles to port, for she was stopped by _U-20_ and was forced to surrender her cargo and abandon her crew before being fatally destroyed by twelve grenades. Ian Holbourn spoke with Captain Turner on the promenade deck about the need for a lifeboat drill, but their exact words could only be guessed. Turner found this and a similar complaint from George Kessler unwelcome and Holbourn headed down to dinner.

Together, all one hundred and fifty ships of the British Grand Fleet had formed a blockade lying directly across the European shipping lanes of the North Sea. U-boats were not unheard of there, but the Kaiser's intention to sink any ship flying the British flag proved to be a potential threat. Germany's cold reception of the blockade in February had led to an excessive force of action that turned the British waters into a war zone. A fleet of submarines drifted southwards to the British Isles, originally intent on attacking and raiding commercial ships of their cargo. Captain Turner, currently unaware of the _Earl of Lathom_ incident, kept _Lusitania_ 's course on the usual turning point of the northeastern route. He planned to bring the ship under her top cruising speed, doing as much as he could with only three boiler rooms active. But Turner did not know that for all of her grandeur and her many safety features, _Lusitania_ was still closing in fast on the very war zone that he hoped to avoid.


	9. To The Stars

Thursday, May 6th, 1915

For the first class passengers, the voyage had been another dream of ordinary luxury, even if it was the one hundred and first, a special number behind the more commemorative one hundred. In the light of an eight year career at sea, the surroundings were exquisite and the service was excellent. The rich, the powerful and the beautiful had mingled in a spectacular voyage of peace and prosperity away from the war of troubles. Old and new friends appeared in their finest clothing for dinner, the final meal before the arrival at Liverpool tomorrow afternoon or later. There was even a Seamen's Charities concert that took place in the lounge that evening with Hilda Stones singing "Rosary" and Charles Frohman was holding a party in his cabin with Josephine Brandell and Rita Jolivet in attendance.

Even as the wealthy passengers raised their glasses and funded the concert, a similar event was taking place in the third class dining room only three decks below, but in another world. Like before, they were drinking, jogging and dancing the many ways of Irish, English and American.

After telling Chloé and his father that he would be going out for a long walk, Adrien spent the day in third class, getting to know more about the passengers and Marinette's friends. Nathanaël also expressed interest in art, wanting to meet Sir Hugh Lane before the arrival in Liverpool. Mylène wanted to sing in the opera and sing with Ivan in his own band, if not act on the silent screen. Alya was ecstatic over some word about the Indian passengers onboard, especially when Adrien mentioned her and Nino having the same nationality.

At 7:50 PM, _Lusitania_ received her first submarine warning. The sender was Vice-Admiral Charles Coke of Queenstown, Ireland. His message was directed to all British ships far beyond the vicinity of his post:

" _Submarines active off the south coast of Ireland._ "

Wireless operator Robert Leith passed this message on to the bridge. The Admiralty however, was less than concerned, but the ship's officers were now well aware of the dire situation effected by the war. Captain Turner left his dinner party early, returning to the bridge by 7:52 to check on _Lusitania's_ approach to the war zone. At first, he was puzzled by the vagueness of the warning and asked for a repetition.

Fifteen minutes later, another message arrived.

" _To all British ships 0005: Take Liverpool pilot at bar and avoid headlands. Pass harbours at full speed. Steer mid channel course. Submarines off Fastnet._ "

Now acknowledging the full details of a threat to his ship, Captain Turner snapped into action. For reasons concerning safety measures, he informed the passengers at the concert during the intermission that they would safely arrive under the Royal Navy's care and ordered the lifeboats to be swung out, but no drill had taken shape, causing George Kessler to pester Staff Captain Anderson about the lack of such a drill that would seem necessary. He also ordered all port holes closed and all the lights in every cabin turned off. He also insisted that passengers should not smoke out on deck. This gave Gabriel a smile in favor of hosting an anti-smoking campaign. But Chloé, who had been waiting impatiently for Adrien to join her in the first row, turned to Sabrina, who was sitting on her right hand side, saving the seat for Adrien and planning to remove herself once he arrived, but he did not.

"Have you seen Adrien?" Chloé asked her.

"Nobody else has seen him since this morning," Sabrina shook her head slowly.

"Tell me something I do not know," Chloé placed her hands on her hips in a privately un-ladylike way. "Gabriel is worried sick. Now find him before he decides to jump ship."

Sabrina nodded in her best impression of a militaristic valet.

The instructed blackout soon reached the third class areas and when Adrien heard the news, he and Marinette decided to head back to the Regal Suite for her drawings and his luggage. Once they arrived at B-56, Mr. Myers was already there, resting in silence. He was awakened by the door opening.

"Who is it?" he asked.

His initial thoughts may have been a steward or a bellboy, but it was only Adrien with a special guest.

"Is this is the Marinette girl you have told me about?"

"Yes," Adrien nodded. "I've come to retrieve my luggage. In case you do not understand, I am moving in with Marinette."

"Then by all means," Mr. Myers let them aside. "Please stay as long as you can."

But they reckoned without Sabrina, who by now had deduced that he was back in his cabin. Adrien had just about retrieved his diary, when he heard a faint knock coming from the door on the port side suite.

"Adrien? Are you in there?"

There wasn't enough time to escape with a heavy suitcase, so they decided to leave it behind and come back for it when the ship reached port.

"Shoot!"

Adrien and Marinette left the room, closing the door. The sound of the door shutting caught Sabrina's attention. She turned around and yelled the sight of Marinette.

"You?! I am taking you back to third! And when I do, I'm going to glue you to the floor!"

"Only if you can catch me!" Marinette teased.

She and Adrien broke into a run, surprising Mr. Myers. Adrien lead her into the grand entrance towards the elevator. They ran into it, shocking the hell out of Stanley Rourke, the lift attendant.

"Take us down! Quickly!" they shouted.

Mr. Rourke scrambled to comply. Marinette even helped him close the steel gate. Sabrina ran up as the lift started to descend. She slammed her right hand on the bars of the gate in defeat. Adrien made a very rude gesture in the form of lifting his left middle finger, and laughed as Sabrina disappeared from his view. Rourke gaped at him.

"Good bye, Sabrina!" he laughed heartily.

Unwilling to give up, Sabrina took to the stairs, hoping to find Inspector Pierpont along the way for assistance. The elevator landed on D-Deck and Adrien and Marinette took the stairs down to the next deck. Mr. and Mrs. Brown of Buffalo, New York, who were returning from the concert, watched them pass with uneven eyes. The two young lovers nearly spilled Stewardess Marion "May" Bird's load of laundry on their way down the corridor.

Laughing as they stopped by the fireman's entrance, Marinette commented.

"Pretty tough for a girl like her. She seems like a cop."

"Actually her father was," explained Adrien. "He was a gendarmerie hired by Chloé's own father André to keep her out of trouble after some crawl through a less reputable area of Paris."

"Montmartre?" asked Marinette.

"Exactly. Roger thought that the best way to keep her in check was by giving her a playmate, his daughter, which is Sabrina of course. Now she waits on her hand and foot, but she does not mind doing all the hard work."

"Sort of like what we are doing now?"

"The hard work?"

"Yes."

Marinette leaned forward to kiss Adrien, her right hand on the door handle and opening it. They fell into the room just as Sabrina came into the corridor. Unsure of their current whereabouts, she gave up the search.

"Chloé is not going to be too happy about this," she muttered to herself, walking slowly back up the stairs.

Inside the fireman's entrance, the sound of heat and coal shoveling sourced from the ladder that Adrien pointed to Marientte.

"After you, m'lady."

The ladder inside the entrance led to Boiler Room 2. Marinette and Adrien looked around in amazement at the figures shoveling a day's worth of coal into the forward boilers. Trimmers were pushing wheelbarrows full of coal into nearby piles and smoke peppered the faces of the black gang.

John O'Connell, one of the younger stokers, was coming back from a reading of the _Cunard Daily Bulletin_ with the literate members of the engineering crew. He was hoping for another round of shoveling coal into the boilers when he saw Marinette and Adrien. It forced his hopeful smile into a frown of confusion.

"What are you two doing down here?"

Adrien and Marinette ran, the heat and fumes covering them in small amounts of soot. They dodged the stokers and trimmers, who looked back at them in surprise.

"Don't mind us!" Marinette shouted over the din. "You're doing a great job, keep up the good work!"

They kept on running the length of the boiler rooms until they came upon the hold. Adrien came upon the large crates of food and books, with Marinette stumbling upon a crate of the ammunition. Brass fixtures used for motorcycle and automobile parts were hidden from view in some crates and sewing machines bound for Manchester were clearly labelled around the edges. At that point, Chloé, finished with the concert, scowled as she left her seat for her stateroom.

"Look what we have here," said Adrien to Marinette.

They decided to have a little bit of fun with the crates, some of the ones that were opened gave them a short-termed moment of amazement like opening presents on Christmas morning. Adrien's eyes smiled with interest at the packages of jewelry and precious stones that dazzled with color in his eyes...though he seemed to be rather curious about one crate that was locked. Supposedly it was labeled with "ammunition", his fears of his native land manufacturing machines and cartridges for the war in Europe were calmed by Marinette, who held him from behind.

"Where to, sir?"

Adrien whispered in Marinette's right ear.

"To the stars."

Rather, they went back to Marinette's cabin around 9:00. Alya, Alix and Ivan were already asleep and the bed was big enough to fit both of them. Adrien jumped into the bunk, feeling the cotton blanket clash with his trousers. Their breaths were loud in the moment of darkness and silence. They smiled at each other in this great moment of truth.

"Are you nervous?" asked Marinette.

"Au contraire, mon cher," Adrien whispered back a reply.

She cherished her face, while he kissed her artistic fingers. The fingers of a girl who was strong and modern unlike the upper-class beauties.

"Put your arms around me, Marinette."

And thus their love was locked, they kissed and slid down the bed under a welcome weight...away from Chloé, away from the wealthy snobs who looked down at those less fortunate, away from the war that seemed out to get it's hands on the ammunition down below in the hold.

* * *

 _Lusitania_ , steaming hell-bent through the darkness, quietly entered the war zone. The lookouts and the wireless operators were well-prepared for an attack from the German captains and their menacing submarines. Back in the Regal Suite, however, Chloé was checking the safe and making sure that nothing was missing before the arrival in Liverpool. She found Marinette's sketchbook along with the drawing of Adrien, along with his note that read:

" _Dear, now you can keep us both locked in your safe,_

 _Adrien_ "

Sabrina watched from the doorway, not willing to get within at least one foot of Chloé's rage over this taunting letter. Fortunately for her, Chloé was calm and collected, and she took a sharp breath of the conditioned air before shoving the items back into the safe.

"We should throw her overboard the minute we arrive," Sabrina suggested.

Chloé turned to her so-called friend with a conspiratorial smile.

"I have a much better idea and we will do it in the morning. That chink Marinette will so embarrassed."

Little did they know that below the surface, another plan, albeit more devious, was taking shape.


	10. Robbed

Friday, May 7th, 1915

The morning added light through the portholes, greeting Adrien, Marinette and the steerage passengers with a warm and friendly glow under a dense fog. The Celtic Sea southwest of the Old Head of Kinsale was calm, the bright sunny day was filled with the cheerful cries of seagulls and the temperature was fifty five degrees Fahrenheit. Lookouts Thomas Quinn and Frank Hennessy, taking over from Patrick Seagraves and Joseph Parry in the crow's nest, were prepared to watch for submarines. Second Officer Hefford arrived on the bridge as usual, reliving Third Officer Lewis of his 4 to 8 AM shift. Meanwhile, _U-20_ submerged for five minutes after spotting a fishing boat, looking for a bigger target.

At 11:25 AM, _Lusitania_ received a message from the Admiralty about submarine activity. This was the ship's third submarine warning which read: " _Submarine active in southern part of Irish Channel, last heard of twenty miles south of Conningbeg light vessel. Make certain Lusitania gets this._ "

Captain Turner was unimpressed by the message and lack of patrol ships, expecting an escort from the cruiser _Juno_ through St. George's Channel. He was certain that he had already passed Brow Head and that the submarine threat was far behind him. But still, he had received another Admiralty dispatch that read.

" _Submarine five miles south of Cape Clear proceeding west when sighted at 10 AM._ "

This was the fourth and final submarine warning.

Crumpling the paper, Turner peered his eyes back to the horizon as the ship steered through the clearing fog. Second Officer Hefford stood nearby on his right hand side, staring out at the Atlantic for any other sign of land.

"In all my years at sea, I can't help but admit that in spite of the flat calm, something exciting is about to happen."

"Like a novel," Turner chuckled. "A work of suspense fiction."

"It will make the submarines clearer to see," Hefford added. "Unless we only find a periscope."

Turner looked down at the compass, examining it. They were still on course at sixty seven degrees east. Then, looking up, he remembered to pass all ports at full speed. Determination was on his face as he walked ten feet aft of the bridge, heading into the wheelhouse.

"Well, I'll be in the chart room if you need me. Keep speed at 18 knots and heading, Mr. Heppert."

"It's Hefford, sir."

"And warn me, of course, if anything becomes in the slightest degree doubtful."

Captain Turner shrugged and walked quietly into the aforementioned room.

At noon, Adrien and Marinette had a hearty breakfast, the best he ever had in weeks. After telling Alya, Alix, Mylene and Ivan about last night's events. They laughed and so did the couple.

"You probably should have seen Sabrina's face when Adrien gave her the finger!" she chortled.

Other men and boys on their side of the table laughed as well, but Adrien kept his face still. He looked at Marinette in a cloud of love surrounding his face and she felt it as well.

"When the ship docks, I am getting off with you."

"I know."

Marinette was about to kiss him lightly, but Adrien's right index finger stopped her lips from getting within five inches from his own.

"But first, I think we should tell Chloé and Father off once and for all."

Marinette frowned.

"Now it's worse."

"Just come with me, Marinette. I jump, you jump... Remember?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Then let's do it," Adrien said as he stood up. "I do have to collect the rest of my belongings anyhow."

Confident, strong and ready to face her adversaries, Marinette followed Adrien up the stairs to first class.

In the B-Deck hallway, bed steward William Barnes and the seventeen year old steward's boy George Bates were reminding the passengers to prepare for the arrival in Liverpool as well as the very mention of a short delay. He was stopped in his tracks, however, by Chloé and Sabrina.

"Is there something wrong, misses?" he asked seeing their concerned looks of anger.

It was Chloé who spoke first.

"Tell the Master-at-Arms and the Inspector that I have been robbed of a very valuable ring."

Back on deck, Marinette and Adrien paced through the privileged passengers on D-Deck who stared at the odd couple. Although the working class had found it's voice in socialism, discrimination was still in the minds of a few who honored the old-fashioned rules of the food chain. Oliver Percy Bernard, the architect took a quick glimpse at them for a quick second and the band was playing "Tipperary" on the Boat Deck, serenading the passengers from a day of worrisome thoughts on an unsinkable ship.

"Now there's real music to drown by," Marinette said, humming to the tune that could be heard inside.

They came upon Sabrina in the hallway, having changed a bit since the last time they saw her.

"We have been looking for you, Adrien," she said sweetly.

Adrien did not speak a single word as they passed her. Then, unseen, she slid the cat ring into the pocket of Marinette's shawl.

A proper crime scene investigation was going on in the port Regal Suite. Gabriel, Lady Allan and her daughters watched in silence as Mr. Williams, accompanied by the second master-at-arms, Peter Smith and Inspector Pierpont searched the room for anything else that was stolen. Smith was going through Marinette's drawing, fascinated by the detail and doubtful that an artist of taken could be the culprit.

"These drawings look very good," he said to Adrien's nude drawing.

Chloé took it back, somewhat angered.

"No touching anything! I want the entire room photographed before we-"

The word "leave" was interrupted by the arrival of Adrien and Marinette. Gabriel looked at her with eyes of malice and hatred just as his son spoke out.

"Father, I want to tell you something very important."

"If it is about leaving us for this... _chink_ ," Gabriel said with venom. "I do not wish to hear it."

Marinette was insulted. She edged towards the "all-high and mighty" gentleman that Adrien dared to call his father, ready to throw a strong left hook into his prominent nose.

"Who are you calling a 'chink'?"

"Now, now. Let us not get too hasty," said Chloé with a voice of inauthentic cheerfulness. "We have a mystery to solve. Two things have disappeared last night. Now that one of them, Adrien, is back, does anyone have any idea where to find the other?"

Her eyes quickly darted left and right, directing them onto Inspector Pierpont.

"Search her," she instructed.

"What?"

Marinette's shawl was removed and before Adrien could respond, Mr. Smith had instantly found the ring.

"Is this it?"

"Yes it is."

Chloé aimed for the ring, but Adrien took it first. He was stunned and so was Marinette.

"Wha-you can't expect me to believe that I took it! I couldn't have!"

Marinette felt her hands being cuffed by the masculine inspector. Adrien tried to speak on her behalf.

"She could not have any motive to take the ring!"

"Of course, she would," Chloé said, smiling with satisfaction. "The ring is very valuable. Anyone would want to sell it for a hundred thousand francs. A sneak-thief like her would know the combination by just memorizing it."

Adrien remembered Marinette looking over him as he opened the safe, his eyes meeting hers in the small mirror above it. In the present, he did not know who to believe.

"I was with her the whole time, she could never be a thief."

"That's what happens when you fall in love with a girl you just met," Chloé spoke lowly, circling him. "I assume she did it when you were putting your clothes back on."

"Or," Marinette fought back. "Your 'woman servant' put it in my shawl when I wasn't looking!"

Sabrina came in on cue, inspecting the shawl.

"It is not even your shawl," she said pointedly. "According to the tag, this is property of Sarah Hodges."

She gave the shawl to Mr. Williams. The writing was legitimate.

"That was reported stolen three days ago."

Marinette turned to Adrien in exasperation

"I just borrowed it so I could get into first class to meet you! I was going to return it!"

Adrien crossed his arms, demanding the truth from her point of view in the impromptu role of a lawyer.

"Exactly when?"

"Before we docked."

But Chloé had another idea to keep the truth from being let out.

"Save it for the judge, chink. You are an honest thief who thought she could steal the most valuable ring onboard a ship of thousands who had plenty of other valuables worth depriving of."

Turning to the masters, she ordered.

"Take her away."

Marinette pleaded to Adrien, who tried to hold onto her. He was dragged all the way to the entrance as she shouted.

"Don't listen to them, Adrien! You know I didn't do it! Don't listen to them! You know me!"

Adrien, still wanting a formal investigation from her own words, tapped his right index finger on Inspector Pierpont's left shoulder, asking him.

"Where are they taking her?"

"Where all criminals go to," the inspector smiled dramatically. "Straight to the cells near the office on E-Deck. I can assure you, young sir, that our cells are the most comfortable on the Atlantic."

And he left a devastated Adrien by the door. Gabriel laid his right hand on his son's left shoulder.

"Such a shame, and you failed to see right through her."

"You know she did not steal the ring, Father," Adrien was growing fearful. The thought of seeing a girl beaten during an interrogation was becoming unsuitable to imagine.

"I may be able to clear her name...if you promise never to see her again."

Adrien tried to be reasonable with his father, talking back to him for the second time since three days ago.

"I love Marinette for what she is, not for money, not for power or well-connections. Hasn't there ever a time even in the smallest measurement that you could give me a life that I want in return? My love for her is genuine, natural and not at all forced."

Gabriel stared back at him, incredulous.

"How can anyone love a poor Chinese girl like her?"

Adrien could not argue with his father any further, having lost all faith and respect towards him. Chloé nudged his right arm and caressed it as she had always done so many time before.

"Your father's right, Adrikins, you are a prince of fashion and she is a commoner. A whore whose father was a gutter rat and her mother was a geisha...like all Asians are."

It was at this point Adrien began to see the politically inaccuracy of this girl's point of view. For the second time, he was back where he started: on his way to Liverpool with the girl from hell and an indifferent father. Worst of all, his lover had been framed for thievery, he wanted to vent his anger out on somebody just so that he could extract the truth from Marinette. But still, he kept most of his anger balanced and it was he who corrected Chloé about Marinette's nationality.

"Japanese women are geishas...Marinette is a Chinese artist."

"Japanese, Chinese, what difference does it make?" Chloé chuckled before she started to tug at him. "Now...why not we forget this ever happened and go down to lunch?"

As she led him out the door, Adrien found his hidden strength. He broke free from Chloé's grasp, forcefully and abruptly. The young lady felt her hands break free from the arm she held, reacting just in time to see Adrien stare at her with despising eyes.

"I would rather be her gutter rat than your husband, because you, Chloé Bourgeois, are nothing more than a SPOILED SELFISH BITCH!"

Gabriel dropped his jaw and before Chloé could have a chance to slap him, Adrien took off like lightning down the hall and down the stairs at a fox's pace. Chloé growled, now she was looking forward to a groomless wedding. However, her problems were about to take a turn of misfortunate proportions.

* * *

At 1:20 PM, _Lusitania_ had fallen into _U-20's_ trap. Chief Engineer Friedrich Sellmer sighted her at that time and rushed to inform Captain Schwieger. The submarine submerged to eleven meters and followed the ship as it zigzagged through the infested waters. Within a rage of seven hundred meters, the crew loaded a G6 torpedo into the tube, but before they could fire, Quartermaster Charles Voegele insisted on sparing the innocent lives. Unfortunately it was Oberleutnant Raimund Weisbach who shoved him aside, carrying out the order and with the torpedo locked in place, Schwieger made his one fatal decision that would shock the world.

" _Feur!_ "


	11. Torpedoed

At 2:10 PM, lookout Leslie Morton spotted the torpedo.

"Torpedoes coming on the starboard bow!" he yelled as loud as his voice could carry.

But his response was only heard from Thomas Quinn in the crow's nest.

"Good God, Frank," he said to his friend Seaman Hennessy. "Here's a torpedo."

Hennessy saw it for himself and called the bridge.

"Torpedo! Starboard side!"

Second Officer Hefford, having relayed the message by phone, shouted to Captain Turner, "There is a torpedo coming sir!"

Before he could take action, the passengers on deck, realizing they had been attacked without warning, braced themselves. There was the sound of a "ping!". The torpedo slammed into the hull and set off a powerful secondary explosion that sent Lifeboat 5 flying overboard with some debris of coal dust and a column of water into the air.

Adrien was about halfway down to E-Deck when he felt the explosion rock the ship violently. In the master-at-arm's cabin, Marinette had banged her forehead against the wall from a whiplash, weakening not only her strength but her chance to live as well. As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Adrien knew that he had a stronger reason for going to see her. Better yet, he had to rescue her.

The engine room responded frantically to the explosion in a desperate attempt to cut the flow of steam and stop the engines. In Boiler Room 2, Chief Stoker Peter Doyle reacted to the jet of water rushing towards him.

"Every man for himself!" he encouraged his brother and fellow stokers to the top.

As the water burst through the hull into the forward boilers, Hefford threw the switch to close the watertight doors-but the doors did not respond. The ship's electricity had weakened and the steam lines had ruptured before Chief Engineer Bryce could take further orders from the bridge.

Quartermaster Johnston had taken a gamble by turning the helm hard over to starboard towards Ireland. Captain Turner hoped that beaching _Lusitania_ would save her, but he didn't know that with the ship's hydraulics having failed from the blast, it was overcorrecting to port on a slowly steeping list. Now the ship was even more difficult to turn. Hefford assessed the situation and feared for the worse. Under Turner's orders, he went down to make sure the watertight doors were closed. This, officially, would be the last time anyone ever saw him.

To most of _Lusitania's_ passengers still inside, the explosion was a loud shudder of doubt and misfortune. It was ironic that a retired US Navy commander named Joseph Foster Stackhouse had been mentioning how she could never be torpedoed when the impact occurred seconds later. Rita Jolivet knew that if worse came to worse, she would use her pearl handled pistol for two reasons: suicide or murder. Michael Pappadopoulos' premonition from the previous night had come true and very soon, he would be fighting for his life. Avis Dolphin, sitting in the second class dining room, watched everything on the tables (dishes, glassware, utensils) spill from the list before she rushed out with her nurses. Aside from a few screams, the dining room was absolutely calm. Elsie Hook felt the ship lurch as she made her way down the stairs to the third class dining room. She went back outside as Alya, watching her from the stairs and feeling the explosion with dread, did the same.

* * *

Senior Second Engineer Andrew Cockburn discovered that _Lusitania_ was taking on water fast, the Orlop Deck was already flooding and directly above it, Adrien had reached the E-Deck landing, racing the impending water that crawled up rapidly step by step.

"Marinette?!" he called, but of course, there was no answer.

He called four more times. Then, Marinette, renewed with hope, called back with every last decibel of volume in her voice.

"ADRIEN!"

He turned around as he made it down the end of the hall.

"I'M IN HERE!"

Adrien followed the voice until he found the right door. Opening it, his heart melted at the sight of Marinette, looking like a damsel-in-distress as she was tied up to a pole.

"Marinette, I am so sorry for not believing you the first time."

He hugged and kissed her like he would never let go.

"That girl Sabrina put it in my pocket," Marinette said trying to catch her breath.

"I know! I know! I know!" Adrien sobbed.

But now was not the time for despairing, he had to get her out before the room went under.

"Adrien, I think the master-at-arms dropped his key on the way out. Search the floor."

He went on his knees and scanned the floor, hoping for a glint of silver. He turned his head fifteen degrees to the right and saw the key lying there, discarded by the hasty inspectors. Adrien picked it up in his right hand and with a quick turn of the key, Marinette was grinning with free hands. She hugged him so tight, that he practically dropped the key back where he found it from a loss of strength. Then they made their way out the door into the hall. But as they were about three feet from the door, three faint voices echoed from the door across the hall.

" _Hilfe! Hilfe!_ "

" _Warum die Mühe? Ich ertrinken anstatt Gesicht Gefängnis._ "

"We can't leave them," Marinette understood the frightened nature of their cries.

But Adrien knew otherwise. Remembering the crate of ammunition in the hold the previous night, as well as the advertisement on the day of departure and the war at hand, he was leaving the promise of pacifism and taking the blame on three German men in the cabin across the way.

"I think I know why they are locked in there," he panted, still trying to recover from the hug. "The Germans think this ship is full of ammunition, which it is. Enough to supply a whole regiment. Maybe they were trying to find it."

He turned at the door, ready for his decision.

"If we do let them out, they might be able to tell us more."

Marinette nodded and reached for the door...

But a torrent of water, held back by a pair of double doors forward of them, blasted through into the corridor. The Germans shouting for their freedom disappeared instantly.

Screaming, Marinette and Adrien ran as a wave blasted around the corner, foaming from floor to ceiling. The hundred tons of water per second gained on them like a like a locomotive as they screamed each others names. It swirled up behind them, forcing them to the floor and sending them on a rapid river.

Through the flailing of his hands trying to reach a well of stairs, Adrien's right forearm caught hold of a bar used for helping fallen passengers, while his left gripped Marinette's collar and he pulled her over to the main stairwell from which he came about a minute ago. Pushed through by the force of the water, they made their way up the Grand Staircase.

Deciding to head aft of the ship for higher ground, Marinette and Adrien, still soaked, ran through the smoking room where they came upon Sir Hugh Lane, slowly making his own way aft as well. He had been carrying a life vest from his cabin for the duration of his walk and felt it to be rather uncomfortable.

"Sir Lane?" asked Adrien. "Will you make a try for it?"

A tear rolled down his left cheek, believing that his time was up.

"It seems that not even the British could build a strong enough ship to prevent a torpedo, young Adrien."

"The ship is going fast," Marinette said to both men.

But before they could continue further, Sir Lane held out his lifejacket to her.

"Good luck to you, Miss Marinette. I hope you will continue to carry out my legacy with your drawings...should I not make it."

Marinette hugged him back.

"And you too," she whispered.

Picking up another lifejacket on the way, Adrien pulled her away from him and they ran through the door to the kitchen of the Verandah Café.


	12. The Sinking

The afternoon was calm, lazy, lovely and peaceful in contrast to a tilting island of steel, iron and wood known as _Lusitania_. Passengers swarmed with activity as her aft deck rose from the sea, higher and higher at an alarming rate. Captain Turner looked down from the bridge as the forecastle submerged into the sea. The water swirled around the captsans and windlasses. He looked behind at the Boat Deck, ready to give the order.

Robert Leith, the telegraphist, took over from David McCormick in the Marconi shack to tap out an SOS:

" _Come at once, big list, 10 miles south Old Head Kinsale._ "

 _Lusitania's_ call was soon picked up by the Leyland Liner _Etonian_ and the Ellerman Line's _City of Exeter_ , both of whom passed it along to outlying ships. The wireless station at Land's End, Cornwall heard the news directly from _Lusitania_ and relayed the message inland. The news eventually travelled to Queenstown, Ireland. By chance, Admiral Coke heard the distress call "SOS". Coke responded instantly, requesting every ship available, including _Juno_ , to set course for the ship's current position. As he issued a detailed list of commands, to prepare his crew for a full speed run and a sea rescue, _Lusitania's_ electric plant failed completely by 2:14 PM and Leith switched to auxiliary power, tapping out an urgent message as the situation worsened.

" _Send Help Quickly. Am Listing Badly!_ "

As he continued tapping, Captain Turner ordered the boats uncovered. The crew and passengers mustered and lifejackets were distributed to all. Many of the seamen were quick to operate the davits that held _Lusitania's_ boats. The officers shouted and used hand-signals to work around the rapid flooding. The increasing list, however, was making the boats on the port side difficult to launch, the starboard ones were easier...if the results had proven to be less chaotic.

At 2:15 PM, starboard, Lifeboat 13 was the first to be launched. First Officer Jones supervised the loading, it had to be done quickly as there was little time for a serenading evacuation. Amongst the crowd were Gabriel and Nathalie, who were already outfitted in their lifejackets.

"Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?" he asked the officer. "I hope they are not too crowded."

"There is no time for class differences, Mr. Agreste, now get in!"

"What about my son?"

"He'll be along soon enough," Jones said as he pushed him in. "Lower away!"

Nathalie jumped into the boat as the sailors, some of them inexperienced in making a fast launch, tried their best to lower the boat as quickly as they could without spilling the load. The boat descended unevenly, tilting to the bow. The passengers were unprepared for this kind of emergency. The dark portholes slid past and the seconds crawled by as if in a nightmare. Blue and calm, the ocean received Number 13, launched with about seventy seats occupied. Gabriel was wracked with guilt, knowing the emotion of loss for the second time in almost five years.

"Adrien..."

Nathalie soothed his worries. She too was expressing her concerns, but it couldn't help the fact that they were in need of getting as far away from the ship before her final plunge created a suction that could pull them down.

"Like the man said, sir. He'll be along."

Seconds later, on the port side, Lifeboat 20 was the second to be launched. Ogden and Mary Hammond, standing nearby, felt that the ship was as safe as a trolley before boarding it. In the middle of the lowering, the sailors lost control of the boat, causing it to dip bow first and spilled it's passengers into the sea. _Lusitania_ towered above them, black and solid. At the time of launching, Number 20 had only about thirty five seats occupied.

The pace of work was frantic and the bow of the ship was so low in the water that it's _Lusitania_ nameplates were submerged. Crewmen and officers ran to work on the davits, their previous complacency gone. Isaac Lehmann, armed with a revolver in his pocket, grew frantic at the water advancing on the deck, threatening a sailor to let him on. His boat of choice, Number 18 from the port side, swung inward and crushed two sisters in their fifties with a blow to the head. Lehmann sprained his right leg, but managed to limp from the bystanders. The ship had less than ten minutes to live.

Marie Depage, who helped several children to safety with Dr. James Houghton, became one of fifty five first class women who did not board a boat. For the members of the ship's crew and Staff Captain Anderson honoring the British rule of "women and children first", some couples were not given a choice. The separation was quick and painful. One woman who had been hit hardest was Alice Hubbard, who refused to leave her husband.

"We are here now, some day we shall go," Elbert philosophized. " And when we go we would like to go gracefully."

Chloé scanned through the crowd for Adrien. Around her was chaos and confusion. Theodate Pope Riddle, her maid Emily Robinson and Edwin Friend were making no attempt to enter a boat. Grace French, the Scottish milliner, jumped into the water without her coat and a lifejacket. An eddy of water was holding her down in the leap that took her twenty feet below the surface. Charles Lauriat, watching Lifeboat 7 still attached to the falls, climbed aboard and helped to cut the falls with a steward's pocket knife. In the process, he was knocked back by a descending davit, but recovered and pushed his way through the occupants who were partially submerged. Very few of them, including Lauriat, made it safely into the water before Number 7 was pulled into the sea. Looking down from the rail, Chloé turned and saw Sabrina hurrying toward her through the aisle connecting the port and starboard sides of the boat deck.

"This place is starting to fall apart," fear was coming into her face. "We don't have much time."

She saw Lady Allan's Pekingese Peek-a-Boo run past her. He was hoping to find his mistress, who had jumped into the water with Gwen, Anna, Frederick Orr-Lewis and the valet George Slingsby. Mr. and Mrs. Bilicke, whose boat was perpendicular, spilled into the sea as well. The girls caught up with Captain Turner at the bridge, where Quartermaster Johnston announced that the ship's list had reached twenty five degrees according to the spirit gauge. Chloé stepped up to him.

"Captain, as the daughter of a French politician, I purpose a new statue for torpedo attacks if we make it to shore."

"Save yourself," his words were aimed at Johnston, who left the bridge with a salute.

Chloé and Sabrina rushed through the bridge towards the port side, where the crewmembers were trying to free the collapsibles and rafts from the spots previously held by the main lifeboats.

In his last act as the commander of a doomed vessel, he instructed the other officers to abandon ship and to do their best for the passengers and crew. Then he remained at the bridge, and as the sinking progressed, he was waiting in over a foot of water. This was the last time most remembered seeing Captain Turner before the ship had completely submerged.

A mixture of all three classes had formed a crowd by the aft lifeboats. The officers, crewmembers and Anderson kept them back as they tried to fill the rest of the boats to capacity.

At 2:21, starboard, Lifeboat 17 was the fifth to be launched. Number 17 was launched with only thirteen seats occupied, maybe even more.

Avis Dolphin watched Professor Holbourn, who had been her friend for the majority of the voyage, slide away from her gaze. After being kissed good-bye from the kind man who told her to find his wife and children if he did not survive, she entered Lifeboat 17 with Hilda Ellis and Sarah Smith, her nurses. As the boat lowered, all Avis could hear was the blood pounding her ears as if she were fearing the long drop to the water and could not believe the unbearable pain in her heart if her friend (who was only thirty one years older than her) would never see her again. At least she had her nurses, as her mother was all the way across the Atlantic back in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.

Suddenly, two men moved, trying to jump into the boat. Unfortunately, the jerked weight of the landing only caused the boat to capsize just before it reached the water. Everyone still onboard had spilled out and Avis, unable to find Miss Ellis and Miss Smith, clung onto a raft. The others who accompanied her in the boat continued on to find other pieces of salvation.

"Depend on it, that's our Avis!" Holbourn shouted as he saw the girl resurface.

Forty two miles out of Kinsale, Captain Wood was pushing _Etonian_ to her maximum speed, taking watch from the bridge. He scanned the horizon for any sign of the sinking ship. Soon, he could pick out the periscope of a submarine, half a point on the starboard bow. Wood, taking the precaution of his own safety, quickly reported to the engine room, asking for more speed. The crew agreed, outrunning the submarine by no less than two miles. But many of the passengers and crew aboard _City of Exeter_ saw the periscope as well, two even and both ships turned back, convinced that the distress signal had been nothing more than a ruse. Danger, as it seemed for them, was not too far away.

Theodore and Belle Naish waited by the boat deck, offering to help the passengers with their lifejackets.

"She's all right, she'll float for an hour," one of the remaining officers told them.

But Belle saw through his fib through a careful observation of the ship's current angle and could only state the negative.

"We're sinking fast. It can't be long now."

By the third class entrance some time earlier, the passengers of said class were also preparing for the evacuation. Much to Alya's disbelief, she and the others had to wait before the captain ordered the lifeboats to be lowered. Chief Steward John Humphrey Griffiths, blocking the entrance stairs, tried to assure the passengers to stay calm to little avail, and that was when Alya stepped in at the front of the crowd.

"You can't keep us waiting too long! The ship is sinking!"

The steerage passengers who heard her words, sensed that their time was running out and began to panic.

"Wait until everything is ready!" shouted Griffiths.

At that moment, Thomas Stewart, an assistant steward, came to inform him.

"Captain's orders, the boats are ready," he said with a rapid speech into Griffiths' left ear.

Satisfied, Griffiths let himself aside and the stream of steerage passengers moved their way up, slowly at first, then rapidly. As they left, several other stewards distributed lifejackets for those who did not have any. Some found their way up the Grand Staircase and others were trying to find alternative ways of reaching the Boat Deck. The sea was creeping forward of the steerage quarters by the time Elsie Hook found some five dollars on the steps. Her father, knowing that the approach of doom was not too far behind, scolded her.

"Throw them away, they may cost you your life."

Elsie dropped the dollars, and Alya, Alix, Ivan, Mylène and Nathanaël followed Mrs. Coughlin and nurse-in-training Violet James to A-Deck, where a portion of the crowd was rushing towards the first boat they saw, Lifeboat 1. Seaman John Clifford Morton, a year older than his brother Leslie, helped his brother with the forward end of the said boat, leaving his previous one, the safely launched Number 11, to lower Number 1 which was already halfway down.

"Give us a chance to live already!"

Alix had pushed herself through the crowd, but before she could let a second cry of demand, her unknowing legs caused her to topple off the deck. As she fell, her right hand reached the side of the boat but slipped in a split second. Alya watched her fall into the water and quickly grabbed a life vest from James McCubbin, the purser. Ivan, Mylène and Nathanaël went aft at the sight of the rising water.

At 2:25, starboard, Lifeboat 15 was the eighth boat to go and the last to be successfully launched from _Lusitania_. Under the command of First Officer Jones, Number 15 was launched overloaded with about eighty people. He spotted the drifting Lifeboat 1 and, with that boat being empty, he rowed towards it, intent on transferring half of the occupants of his boat into that one.

Collapsible A2 was freed from the deck and floated off, carrying at least a few sailors. The bow was plunging suddenly and the forecastle had gone completely under when Chloé and Sabrina climbed aboard. They watched Lifeboat 14, the only boat on the port side to have been successfully launched drifting away with about eleven of it's original sixty occupants.

At that moment, the water had reached the bridge and was beginning to submerge. Alya struggled to put on her life jacket as the water reached her feet. Around her, as she helped the sailors with their attempts to launch the rafts, _Lusitania_ had now reached the end of her eight year career, leaving her passengers and crew with marks of prestige and opprobrium.

Captain Turner's last moments aboard would become the subject of controversy for years to come. Believing himself to be the last person onboard, he climbed to the halyards to prevent himself from being swept away.

Alfred Vanderbuilt was last seen on the port side near the Verandah Café, his valet Denyer jumped into the sea with Dr. Owen Kenan and did not return to the surface.

No one would ever know how Alice and Elbert Hubbard met their end.

As a wave swept aft, men furiously cut away the falls that still attached whatever lifeboats were left to the davits. Some of the overturned boats served as escape crafts for a hardy few. Other boats, even some that were swamped by the rising sea, drifted away, saving some lives and providing others with a quieter place to die. For everyone else, there would be no escape from the foundering _Lusitania_ and the water that was rapidly consuming her.

Father Basil Maturin remained selfless as his final actions delivered a prayer for everyone, sacrificing his life for a child by delivering it in the last boat to go with the instructions:

"Find it's mother."

Three members of the ship's band, the remaining two would later be lost, swam away from the ship, losing all of their instruments in the process.

"I have lost a damned good cello," said Thomas Hawkins as he swam for the boats.

Marinette and Adrien ran out of the Verandah Café into the large crowd. Marinette pushed her way to the rail and she and Adrien looked at the state of the ship. The bridge was under water and there was chaos on deck. There was little chance for any of the remaining lifeboats to be launched. Marinette helped Adrien put the lifebelt on. People streamed around them, shouting and pushing.

"We have to stay on the ship as long as possible!" she shouted. "The boats are too risky. Come on!"

They pushed their way aft, through the panicking crowd of passengers and crew.

Collapsible A2 whirled around like a leaf in the currents, Chloé and Sabrina, using their oars as weapons of defense, tried to row away from the sinking ship. When it seemed like the boat was full, they tried to drive anyone who threatened to swamp the collapsible away from it by slamming the oars against the surface. Chloé slapped her oar into the water while Sabrina used hers to push the water-bound passengers and crew back into the sea.

"Back off," she screamed. "You will swamp us!"

Men and women swam to the lifeboats, even some that were overturned. The forward funnel dipped into the water, it's large opening draining the water and sucking in Inspector Pierpoint, Margaret Gwyer and Harold Taylor. Moments later, the boiler exploded, ejecting the victims out and it's waves swept away the boats and other victims in the water. Nearby, Alya swam like hell, trying to avoid the suction. She too was pushed by the wave and was going to live, no matter what it took.

On the stern, steerage passenger Elizabeth Duckworth was walking like a mindless doll as she found herself reciting the 23rd Psalm.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death-"

"Could you walk through that valley a little faster, miss?" Marinette asked impatiently.

Elizabeth let the two aside, then she saw three Irish girls singing "There Is a Green Hill Far Away" in thin, frightened voices.

At last, Marinette and Adrien reached the poop deck, struggling aft as the angle increased. Nearby, Charles Frohman was calm and undisturbed as he smoked on a cigar. Around him were Rita Jolivet, George Vernon, and Captain Alick Scott, ready to jump. Others had their minds blank with dread. Frohman, supporting himself with his cane, carried strong words, the words that would immortalize his final moments as he was swept away into the water.

"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life."

Three miles away aboard the Peel fishing vessel _Wanderer_ , Skipper William Ball and his son Stanley had sighted _Lusitania's_ bow in a downwards position. Agreeing that she was in distress, they called the remaining crew of five to set course for the ship. _Wanderer_ , not built for high speeds due to her being a sailing vessel, went as fast as the light breeze could take her. As the crew rushed to the rescue, they noticed how _Lusitania's_ stern reached higher and higher before she completely capsized. They knew that by the time they would reach her, it would be too late.

From Lifeboat 13, Gabriel and Nathalie stared at the spectacle of the dying ship, unable to frame it or put it into any proportion.

Nearby, on the Old Head of Kinsale, six year old George Henderson and his parents were eating their sandwiches on what seemed like a perfect day until they too, saw the spectacle of _Lusitania_ sinking before their eyes.

Her stern was high in the air, maybe at about forty five degrees from the boy's innocent mind. The propellers seemed to be about ninety feet out of the water. Over a hundred passengers clung to the decks, looking from his point of view like a swarm of bees.

"Cor," he whispered.

A group of schoolchildren from Butlerstown, having heard the explosion from afar, were summoned back to the classroom to write an essay on what they had seen.

Back inside _U-20_ , Schwieger knew he had seen enough. He stepped away from the periscope, offering it to anyone else who wanted a look at the dying steamer. Vogele and some of the others that did, were catatonic with remorse, their minds disturbed over what they had done. Schwieger could avert his eyes, but he could not fire a second torpedo into the crushing crowd of humanity trying to save their lives.

As the ship foundered, water rushed upward from the lower decks. The once-elegant grand staircase was now flooded by the sea. Those trapped in the elevators had little hope as water burst through the forward doors and windows of the boat deck, dragging people inside. Above them, the beautiful glass skylight gave way. Every loose object, no matter how big or small, slid to the side or forward as _Lusitania_ tilted.

Marinette and Adrien made it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. They gripped the rail, jammed in between other people. Recognizing it as the spot where Marinette pulled him back a week...and a lifetime ago, Adrien sobbed with joy as he tried in vain to lift his spirits.

"Marinette, this is where we first met!"

They held on to each other, neither of them wanting to let go.

Above Adrien's left shoulder, Marinette could see the faces of the people still onboard. Alice Middleton being washed off the deck, Nathanaël looking at her briefly, Katherine Coughlin clinging to her daughter Margaret stoically, Nino slipping as he struggled along the railing and slid away screaming. Ivan was clutching Mylène, who was crying in terror.

"Don't worry," he soothed. "It will all be over soon."

Chief Baker Robert Pinkerton prepared himself for the inevitable as he jumped off the stern. Dr. Mecredy followed him as well from the same spot, even if he wasn't much of a high diver. The Hook family jumped one by one from the railing. Frank was too late to see the falling lifeboat strike his left thigh and the water washed him away from his father and sister. Even Chief Engineer Bryce was able to leave his post, but his chances for survival were slim, for he was overtaken by the water in seconds.

At last, the second funnel submerged and Marinette pulled Adrien over to the rail. Others who didn't climb over plummeted from the listing ship, followed by ropes and lifeboats among other pieces of debris from the impact. It became a surreal moment when the ship started to take her final plunge.

To Marinette, it felt like an elevator as she and Adrien dropped slowly into the sea. The water reached the base of the third funnel as she talked fast, instantly finding a way to save hers and Adrien's lives.

"The ship might suck us down, and when it does, take a deep breath when I say it."

The fourth funnel followed.

"We're going to make it, Adrien! Do you trust me?"

He stared at the water coming up at them, and gripped her hand harder.

"I trust you!"

The poop deck was disappearing, the water engulfed the second class promenade and the docking bridge was half-submerged at the time Marinette prepared herself to hold her breath at the last thirty feet.

"Ready? NOW!"

Adrien swallowed a huge lump of breath, puffing his cheeks as he prepared to go under.

At 2:28, a short eighteen minutes after the impact, the last of _Lusitania_ slowly slided beneath the surface-and struck the sea bed, three hundred feet below. No human eyes or ears could ever erase the very memory of this tragic moment.


	13. Never Let Go

Adrien came to the surface in the middle of a daylight nightmare. A roiling chaos of screaming, thrashing people. Over a hundred people and some debris were now floating where the ship went down. Some were stunned, gasping for breath. Others were crying, praying, moaning, shouting and screaming for help.

He scanned the horizon for Marinette and found her against the rubble. Her right hand was urging him to make a swim for it.

"SWIM, ADRIEN! SWIM!"

A large crate of furs was upset in the water. Marinette reached it first on the left while Adrien took the right. It seemed to be about as large as the dinner table in the Regal Suite. Adrien climbed onto it belly down, but when Marinette tried to climb aboard, it tilted, enough to dump Adrien off.

"Are you sure there's no room on there?" she asked.

"Only your upper half can stand this," Adrien replied regretfully.

So Marinette climbed aboard, heaving until at least her breasts and belt were above the water, clinging close to him. The broken halves of a nearby lifeboat proved useless for saving any lives that were still in the water, including Ivan, who had seen the two from his own distance and tried to put Mylène onboard a small half of the boat. Mylène, however, slipped and fell back into the water. Then she and Ivan swam off to look for another boat, blessing Adrien and Marinette along the way.

They saw Chief Officer Piper. He was blowing his whistle furiously, knowing the sound would carry over the water for miles. But the whistle had only reached a decibel over the cry of hundreds.

"I'm sure the boats will come back for us, Adrien," Marinette shivered.

A purpose swam right at Reverend. Henry Simpson like a sea monster from the darkness. It motored and played around him before heading to the Old Head of Kinsale. Junior Third Officer Bestic also attempted swimming to shore before he came upon a collapsible that was filling with water and used whatever flotsam he could find to prevent it. Thomas Percy Richards, a seven year old boy from second class, was fortunately old enough to swim by himself to the overturned Lifeboat 22 in search of his family.

A group of people still in the water were drawn to Collapsible A2 as their only hope, but Chloé and Sabrina slapped their oars into the water as a warning due to the boat's full capacity. Alya, exhausted and near her limit, made it just in time to miss having her head clubbed by Chloé, any closer would have resulted in the spoiled girl cutting open her scalp. Dazed, Alya climbed onto the boat, muttering before she slipped slowly into unconciousness.

"My...family."

Chloé and Sabrina kept on wielding their oars as they yelled, warning the swimmers to find another boat or face immediate pain.

The agonizing cries of death from a hundred throats could still be heard from Lifeboat 13. Gabriel had his ears covered against the wailing while the other occupants, carrying at least a few from all three classes, most of them second-cabin, listened. The seaman in charge of the boat, Frederick O'Neill, was concerned but at the same time, stubborn.

"As much as I like to help," he said to the passengers. "We are already full enough as it is."

"Then I personally suggest that we find another boat to transfer at least two-thirds of this capacity," Nathalie added. "Look! There seems to be plenty of room in that one over there."

Lifeboat 14 with about eleven of it's sixty seats occupied, was floating alongside them. But Gabriel, trying to shut it all out, was too traumatized to make a move.

At 2:40, First Officer Jones of Lifeboat 15, had already rounded up and transferred at least thirty five people to Lifeboat 1 and prepared to go back for more until both boats were full.

"If we find any more boats," he said to the others. "Empty or half-full, we'd better do it quick before heading to port...unless if another rescue ship comes."

The six successfully launched boats, among collapsible and rafts, floated as the sky shifted into an afternoon hue...waiting.

Marinette and Adrien drifted under the shifting sky of clouds and color. The water was glassy under the swell. Most the people had tried swimming towards the shore as their only hope. Others weakened by their injuries, chose to stay behind to die. A low moaning filled by some women in the water filled the air and were silenced the further they were away from Adrien's ears.

"It's so quiet out here," Adrien said glumly.

Marinette squeezed a few more inches of her upper body onto the crate. Her face was chalky and she tried to overcome the exposure.

"It will take a few more minutes...the boats will be organized...then we can leave together..."

Adrien was too focused on Marinette to look for any boats.

"I don't know about you," she continued. "But intend to tell the chairman of the Cunard Line to write a better submarine warning."

A sad smile formed Adrien's lips and a tear sprouted from his left eye as he whispered.

"I love you, Marinette."

"I love you too, Adrien. But neither of us can die just yet."

The cold truth coming in, Adrien dropped his smile and another tear came from his right eye.

"I'm so cold. I want to be over there."

He weakly aimed his left index finger in the direction of the Old Head of Kinsale, where it's lighthouse stood as the only black and white object of a colored world.

"And we will," Marinette soothed. "We'll live in Ireland, we'll make lots of babies, watch them grow into adults through school, college, grandkids...and then we'll die, warm in our beds...and not like this."

Adrien could almost see the broken ship lying at the bottom and the silhouette of the submarine heading north in his mind, his eyes registered anger and vengeance on it's occupants.

"The Germans will get what is coming to them...and I will make sure of that."

"You don't have to," Marinette added. "Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I am thankful for that, Adrien."

"This war has gone too far," Adrien muttered. "Why couldn't they let us be? Did they even know that our lives were worth more than that godforsaken ammunition?"

"Never mind them, Adrien," Marinette's voice was beginning to tremble, she too was the one crying. "Just promise that you will survive...this, the war and anything else that comes your way. Adrien, promise me now, and never let go of that promise."

Adrien gripped her left hand with his left and squeezed it with all the strength he had left. He placed his forehead against hers and spoke the following words before everything else returned to silence.

"I'll never let go, Marinette...I'll never let go."

* * *

By 5:00, silenced by the cold, by terror, injury or exhaustion, the cries from the water had ceased. Under the command of Skipper William Ball, _Wanderer_ arrived at the scene of the disaster, taking aboard the occupants of Lifeboats 21, 11, 15, 1 and Collapsible A2 with a total of one hundred and sixty people. Two of the people they were able to rescue from the water were Nathanaël and second class passenger Sarah Rose Lohden, both of them having lashed themselves onto floating steamer chairs. The men hauled the two into the boat and other passengers began to revive them. Thomas Woods, amongst the seven crewmen, remembered it all too well.

"The saddest sight I ever saw in all my life." he would later tell the press. "I cannot tell you in words, but it was a great joy to me to help the poor mothers and babes in the best way we could."

Adrien and Marinette continued floating in the blue water, diluted by blood from injuries. The clouds were reflected in the lapping surface of the water, gave an impression that the two were floating in the sky. Both were still with their hands locked. Marinette looked down while Adrien looked up at the canopy of clouds rolling by. The long wait had overwhelmed him and in a tranquil moment of peace, he hummed "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere".

Turning his head away from the sun as he reached the fifth lyric, his eyes came upon a ship with a mast, carrying some people on board. Salvation had come at last.

"Marinette...there is a boat."

He tapped her right hand, but not too hard, for she seemed to be asleep. Her eyes opened with a yawn.

"MARINETTE!" he shouted. "There's a boat, Marinette."

"I heard you! I heard you! Can't I at least take a nap!"

Adrien, now determined, struggled to move after them. He pulled Marinette away from the board and swam over to Chief Officer Piper, who had already died of exposure and grabbed his whistle, he blew twice before he found the energy to scream "Over here!" with all the strength he had.

Skipper Ball whipped around at the sound of the whistle.

"Look there! I see you! Woods, pull us back!"

Adrien and Marinette waved their arms and he blew the whistle four more times before Ball pulled him in. He slipped into unconsciousness as they scrambled to cover him with blankets. The last thing he saw was the sun entering his eyes as he slept for another hour, playing back the recent events in his mind.

1,201 people went into the sea, when _Lusitania_ sank from under them. There were six boats floating nearby, and all the rest were empty, flooded or overturned. Seven people were saved from the water, Adrien and Marinette included. Seven, out of twelve hundred. Afterwords, the seven hundred people in the boats and in the water had nothing to do but wait...to die, to live and wait for an absolution that would never come.


	14. Aftermath

_Lusitania's_ survivors were stunned by the loss of their loved ones and fellow passengers. They sat silently in the lifeboats, called for help from nearby ships and bickered miserably as they floated in the Irish Sea. Thanks to the lack of a plug, the previously capzised Lifeboat 14 was gradually sinking. Adrien and Marinette watched from the cuddle of their blankets as some of the other passengers shouted and cheered to signal the approaching rescue ships. The Admiralty tug _Flying Fish/Galloping Goose_ was steaming toward them from the northeast. Captain Thomas Brierley reached _Lusitania's_ last known position, only to find lifeboats, debris and bodies scattered over three to four miles. The empty ones told an awful truth. Another tug, the _Stormcock_ , drifted towards Lifeboat 11, ready to take aboard the next batch of survivors.

The crew of the rescue ships greeted the survivors with strong arms and respectful silence. The men, women and children of _Lusitania_ pushed through the crowds and lined the railing, looking for their wives, husbands and parents. Anyone at sea might have shared their fate, or the fate of the victims they had left behind. Those coming aboard did whatever was necessary to survive a long day in the sea. Captain Turner understood the price he had paid for his survival. He had to bear the responsibility of driving his ship of innocents into the war zone. His eyes had the face of a damned soul as he boarded the Granton trawler _Bluebell_ , where he passed the accusing gaze of a woman who said.

"My child's death was not necessary. It was due to the lack of discipline and organization aboard your ship."

At 3:00 PM, the Courtmacsherry lifeboat _Kezia Gwilt_ was launched, arriving at the site of the disaster two hours later and recovered sixty-five bodies by 8:40. By then, the last _Lusitania_ passengers and crew were rescued. Other ships nearby went on a final search of the area. The terrible realization grew and there were none left in the water.

As _Wanderer_ loaded _Lusitania's_ passengers and crew, the Eclipse cruiser _Venus_ was sent out to recover bodies, but they were too late to help the living. Chloé and Gabriel watched the procedures taking place from the starboard side, then she started to look for Adrien. The decks of _Wanderer_ were crowded with huddled people, about two hundred of the survivors at least and the weight was starting to take it's strain on the fishing vessel. They found him and Marinette in a blanket sipping hot tea.

"So you two lived," she smiled.

"How awkward for you," Adrien furrowed his brow.

"Adrien, I want you to know-"

"That you're sorry?" he held up his right hand for silence and wrapped his left arm defensively around Marinette. "No matter how genuine it is, I am through with you. I might have mentioned to you a long time ago, that you can not force your own child to marry someone they don't love, whether it be for money or for something else. My heart will and always belong to Marinette. Do not try to find me or I will have you persecuted for stalking. In return I will keep my silence and Chloé can be free to love whoever you want."

Chloé was touched by his words. In a rare emotion of emotion striking a chord into her heart, her eyes welled with water and it was clear that she truly deeply loved him.

"You are so precious to me, Adrien."

Adrien fixed the young lady and his father with a glare that was as hard as the torpedo that had changed their lives forever.

"Your jewels are more precious than lives."

He turned to the lighthouse of the Old Head of Kinsale.

"Goodbye, Chloé. Goodbye, Father."

After a moment, they walked away.

True to his word, they did not see each other again. But Marinette and Adrien did find out that Alya, Alix, Nathanaël, Ivan and Mylène survived, the latter two having been picked up by the steamer _Westborough_ , disguised as a Greek steamer named _Katrina_ along with Rita Jolivet. Adrien sympathized for them, while the other passengers, whose pleasure cruise had turned into a mission of mercy, were provided with aid and comfort from _Wanderer's_ crew. The tanker _Narragansett_ , who had already responded to _Lusitania's_ distress call, sailed over the location of the sinking with the bodies and pieces of wreckage still visible and drifting to shore. Skipper Ball asked his son for a full survivor count from other ships and prepared to return to Queenstown. Commander Shee, _Stormcock's_ master made one final demand before leaving the area, that the survivors be transferred to his much larger ship. There was thanksgiving for the survivors and a brief funeral for the lost. The sobbing survivors were overpowered by grief.

In New York, Cunard's representative Charles Sumner received a morning call from a reporter with the news that _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed and was sinking. The story had already reached the Admiralty and Liverpool was soon buzzing with rumors. The headline of _The Evening Star_ claimed that _Lusitania_ was sinking, but all of her passengers were safe. But the _New York Times_ assumed the worse and published it. Hatred for the Germans began to spread.

As _Wanderer_ and Admiral Coke's rescue party of ships steamed east, _Lusitania's_ survivors settled uneasily into crowded new quarters with their sympathetic hosts. Passengers and crew shared or gave up their spots. Under these conditions, _Wanderer_ was too small to allow anyone much privacy. The common areas inside were filled with sleeping refugees, driving and transferring many others out onto the decks. _Lusitania's_ lifeboats were towed behind them in a haunting reminder of the disaster. Amidst the crowding, surviving family members reunited. Newly made widows, widowers and orphans, recalling their own lost husbands, wives, sons and daughters were tortured by the presence of those who have survived, among them being Ogden Hammond, having lost his wife; Gladys Bilicke, who had lost her husband and Lady Allan who had lost both of her daughters along with the entire Crompton family.

Throughout the evening, desperate families of _Lusitania_ passengers and crew jammed the Cunard Line offices in New York, London and Liverpool. With no real news yet, all rumors seemed true. Finally, one German sent a simple message to a crowd of New Yorkers:

"We warned them; our Embassy advertised the warning; we were within our rights."

One hour later, reporter Jack Lawrence announced it to the _New York Evening Mail_. The news crossed the Atlantic by cable. No one knew who was alive or dead. The first numbers appeared; about fifty one of the one hundred and fifty nine American passengers picked up. For a ship who had been booked with over two hundred and ninety passengers, this could only mean the worse for America. Hopeful speculations gave way to horrible predictions. Germany's _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ disrespectfully called the disaster a triumph of their country's submarines which had to be seen as "the greatest achievement of this naval war". Other papers claimed that the Kaiser even gave the children of Germany a national holiday to commemorate the sinking. Lists of names were posted and then corrected with each vague new report. Familiar names were misspelled or omitted. There would be no relief from the short-lived confusion and German bias until the next day, when the survivors arrived in Queenstown.

Adrien stood by the port railing of _Wanderer_ as the sun went down. The day had turned into early night and all aboard could see the lights of Cobh Harbour in the distance. By 8:10 PM, _Stormcock_ docked at the pier, dropping off the first batch of survivors along with Number 13 of the six _Lusitania_ lifeboats that the other ships were still towing from their own cables. These lifeboats were all that remained of the sunken _Lusitania_. Adrien, watching them from afar, gazed at the town lit by gas torches, welcoming the sons and daughters of Ireland home from the new world. It was just as Alya saw it, so clearly in her mind.

Amongst the darkness, Cunard's wharf was packed with soldiers, sailors, and townspeople who clapped for the survivors. Waiting were some friends and relatives of _Lusitania_ passengers, city officials, the US consul, doctors, nurses and coroners. Stretchers, blankets and ambulances waited as well, ready to provide comfort and aid to those without family. Delegations came with money for those who lost everything and a crowd of two thousand had spread out behind the soldier lines. Irish journalists were there, among them Wilbur Forrest of United Press, looking for a good story, eager to share this moment with the world.

By 9:00, _Wanderer_ had docked in Queenstown with at least half of the survivors still aboard. Adrien and the others came down the gangplank and passed through the Cunard office. Some like Charles Lauriat were impatient, arguing to have his fellow survivors aboard _Flying Fish_ disembark immediately due to the need of medical assistance. Adrien, still wrapped in his shawl, walked with a group of steerage passengers with Nathanaël and Katherine Coughlin following at the very end. American Consul Wesley Frost came to each passenger, asking them questions. When he came to Adrien after Marinette went first, he asked.

"May I take your name please, young man?"

Out of honor, faith and wanting to be as far away from his father as possible, Adrien spoke like a mature boy, having grown into manhood, even after losing his family.

"Cheng. Adrien Cheng. She's my wife."

He didn't care if his family tried to find him without changing his first name. All he wanted was to get out into the world and fulfill their dreams together, but before they could, he was escorted by Mr. Frost to a bench for processing. As they waited, the crowd jostled to see the faces of Queenstown residents and even some family members shouting the names of loved ones whose fates were still unknown. For every reunion that happened, many more never would.

One man intent on formally greeting the survivors was John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, head of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea who had previously investigated the sinkings of _Titanic_ and _Empress of Ireland_. He messaged the Queenstown coroner John Horgan to send out a handful of subpoena, one of which was for Captain Turner. The investigation's hearings would begin on June 15th at 10:00 AM and Lord Mersey wanted Turner to be there.

Finished with their quick processing, Adrien and Marinette bid Alya, Alix Nathanaël, Ivan and Mylène farewell and slipped away into the crowd, walking with purpose and hoping to join the army in their own quest (and the quests of many others) for vengeance against Germany and her crimes of war against humanity. About a mile away from the harbor, they soon discovered three valuable objects in his jacket: his pen, his diary and the ring. He stared at it in amazement. Although his diary was waterlogged, he wrote one final entry into the middle of the book.

" _Dear Diary_

 _I am through with Chloé, I do not wish to see Father again. I cannot find Nathalie or Nino and I do not know where any of the other passengers are, not even Captain Turner or Miss Jolivet._

 _If I had lost you as well, I would not be writing this entry as a historical record for years to come. Thankfully, you were in my pocket when I left my old life for good two days ago and I can never be more thankful by this coincidence. The cat ring, surprisingly, was also in my pocket from when they found it in Marinette's shawl. I must have forgotten that I put it there and now I do not know what to do with it._

 _Lately, my dear, I have been pondering something else. But that still doesn't mean I won't go to war just because of Marinette almost drowning. It is something else, something more valuable than war and it's path of destruction and death._

 _Can you exchange one life for another? A caterpillar turns into a butterfly and a cat has nine lives. If a mindless insect or a smart animal can do it, why can't I? Is it any more unimaginable than the sinking of the Lusitania?_

 _Whatever I choose, it is my life and I am going to spend the remainder of it with a loved one._

 _Goodbye for now,_

 _Adrien._ "


	15. Epilogue

The passenger lists posted in America and England became more accurate following the arrival in Queenstown. The crowds outside Cunard and the newspaper offices watched with hope and fear for familiar names. Liverpool was hardest hit by the news that only about one hundred and thirty nine of _Lusitania's_ three hundred and nine crewmembers were saved. The _Liverpool Daily Post_ reported:

"Not all of them had recovered from their daze and stupor..."

The _Nation_ delivered a tone of outrage.

"It indicates disposition to follow civilized ways from the discussion of what our Government may present for the consideration of the German Government as a result of the _Lusitania_ slaughter and of preceding violations of our maritime rights."

On Monday, May 10th, Ireland observed a national day of mourning for _Lusitania_. Roughly two hundred and eighty nine bodies that had been washed ashore were recovered, catalogued, photographed and identified. The rest were recovered by ships and then later embalmed by undertakers. Passengers of all classes were placed in coffins and taken back to port. A sad cargo of corpses were escorted by a crowd of soldiers and sailors into Queenstown where the coffins were kept open for one final chance of identifying the deceased. Some like Charles Frohman and Elbert Hubbard reached their final resting place in their hometowns, with over three thousand people attending Hubbard's own memorial service in East Aurora, New York. Other bodies, known and unknown, were finally buried in Old Church Cemetery. Cunard offered a one pound reward to pay for the reporting and retrieval of additional bodies. The dead were properly mourned and prayers of thanks were offered to those who were rescued. Churches and other cities were also crowded with those gathering to remember the tragedy and pray for it's victims. In Cobh Harbour, flags flew at half-staff for the sons and daughters of Ireland, who would never return home from the new world.

Even as the United Kingdom mourned, America was in a state of sharp reactions. Coroner John Horgan convened an inquiry in Ireland the morning after the rescue ships docked. America was still enraged by the Germans involvement in the disaster and President Woodrow Wilson had moved quickly to write a note of protest while the incident was still fresh. His colleague, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, signed and created the first note delivered to the German government on May 13th, mentioning other U-boat incidents to his opponent James W. Gerard. _Lusitania's_ loss might have proved to be an avenue of attack against the ambassador of the German embassy. After two days in Queenstown, the hearings would be moved to Westminster Central Hall in London. Those crewmembers and passengers who had not received a congressional subpoena were free to return to their lives.

The first witness called to the hearings was Alexander Galbraith, Cunard's assistant superintending engineer. He described the ship in technical detail, how many tons she weighed, how long she was, how she met the standards, as well as her top speed. This allowed the Wreck Commissioner's Court with preparations to understand and question the rapid sinking. Given his previous inquiries, Lord Mersey had become a semi-nautical expert while remaining true to his post as a judge who had been appointed Wreck Commissioner in 1912, with the understanding that he shifted the blame on the _Titanic_ disaster away from the Board of Trade. After providing the court with profile plans representing various sections of _Lusitania_ , Galbraith withdrew himself and the court was ready to begin with the survivors.

The fourth witness called to the inquiry was Captain Turner. His answers were short, some descriptive and others, including questions, were controversial. He claimed that _Lusitania_ was never carrying any weapons, that he never conversed with Professor Holbourn about the lifeboat drill, and that he left the ship only when he thought there was no one else around him. The Admiralty was not happy with Turner's final actions onboard the sinking vessel. Whether they disbelieved Turner or simply disliked him for not going down with his ship, they seemed determined to hold him responsible for the crime. There was hope that, whatever the verdict, he would be arrested immediately after the inquiry.

First Officer Jones was the thirteenth witness to appear on the second day. He spoke of the ship's list, how many degrees she was at, how the sinking commenced and the difficulty in walking he had during the list. He also described his dramatic transferring of his overloaded lifeboat into an empty one and going back in search of other passengers and crew in the water. When Captain Turner was called to testify again the day after, he would speak about the collapsible boats, saying that there was no general practice aboard the ship and that all watertight compartments were closed prior to the attack.

Upon his return to Boston, Charles Lauriat published the first and one of the most exciting survivor accounts yet, titled _The Lusitania's Last Voyage_. He spoke of helping the passengers in Lifeboat 7, of being dragged down by the wireless aerials, of spending hours aboard the upright collapsible. As a man who nearly gave his life to honor the rule of women and children first, Lauriat mentioned the increase in panic by the swarm of steerage passengers, who arrived on deck just in time to assist the others in helping to launch the boats. His sentence in the book illustrated the strong voices of the third class passengers, it also raised the abnegation of his heroic actions.

In Wilhelmshaven on May 12th, _U-20_ broke radio silence and took credit for sinking _Lusitania_ , and was criticized for the brutality of the action. Beginning with Liverpool on May 8th, German establishments in the United Kingdom were dealt with rioting and looting. Policemen intervened the destruction until the matter could be settled, resulting in the injuries of one hundred and seven officers. From this point on, London would receive further destruction from Germany's own aerial defense system of zeppelins that bombed the city. On a positive note, however, an industrial boom called for labor demand that was without parallel to any previous point in the city's history.

The first passenger to testify before the Board of Trade was Mabel Learoyd. The separation between herself and her husband Charles had come back to haunt her. Fortunately, her testimony added further detail about the sinking and how the passengers behaved, with several women calling for lifebelts. Sir Edward Carson, the Board of Trade's Attorney-General, had Mrs. Learoyd explain her actions in the water.

"And do you remember what happened to you after that?"

"Well I was in the water. I had a lifebelt on and I was underneath for a few seconds, and then I came to the surface again and I thought I was in the water about a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes, but when I was picked up by some stewards who were on an upturned boat, I asked them to look round to see if they could possibly see my husband in the water. I said I had only been a few minutes in the water. One of them said 'Oh, I think you have been longer than that as it is now by my watch after 3 o'clock, and the ship went down about a quarter past two.'"

"And I think you never saw your husband again?"

"I never saw him again."

In spite of all evidence pointing to Walther Schwieger, Lord Mersey found the perfect scapegoat in Captain Turner. Because of his disobedience to steer _Lusitania_ in a zig-zag manner among other incidents, the Secret Elite was already prepared to treat Turner harshly. Fortunately, the Admiralty was indeed seeking the very person who could take the full blame for those one thousand, one hundred and ninety eight needless deaths in the Irish Sea on their wanted list of possible war criminals. The press stuck to their story of calling Schwieger "The Baby Killer", and he was met with further disgust upon his return to Berlin, where he formally apologized his actions to the Kaiser, but the increasing provocation of the United States only resulted in a restriction of submarines attacking civilian vessels without warning.

Back in London, Lord Mersey concluded the Board of Trade Inquiry on Wednesday, July 1st. Over the last five days, his committee had interviewed thirty five witnesses, generating over one thousand and two hundred pages of testimony. The Mersey Report, delivered July 17th, blamed _Lusitania's_ rapid foundering on a second torpedo from another submarine and the ship's speed. It blamed the German Government for deliberately attempting to murder the passengers and the loss of life on the difficulties of the sailors trying to launch the lifeboats. It also found no munitions or ammunition onboard the ship. The relieved Captain Turner was forgiven. No blame was attached to the owners of the ship or that Captain Turner behaved improperly. The report did not make any recommendations or acknowledged any of the technical issues, leaving the location of where the torpedo hit a complete mystery.

In September 5th, 1917, Kapitänleutnant Walter Schweiger was killed in action when his current submarine of command, _U-88_ , collided into a British mine. At thirty two years old, he had received the Pour le Mérite for being the sixth most successful commander of a submarine during the war, but his involvement in the _Lusitania_ disaster would continue to be the best, if not worst, of his long-remembered career. Captain Turner would survive the sinking of another Cunard vessel, _Ivernia_ , waiting until all of the ship's crew and troops were safely evacuated until he himself swam away. He retired in 1919 and would try to avoid any reference to _Lusitania_ until his death fourteen years later.

Now that the British government had addressed the _Lusitania_ disaster, August saw the first civil lawsuits appearing in American and German courts. Maude Thompson filed a claim for the loss of her husband Elbridge. Robert Dyer sought over one thousand and two hundred dollars in lost property damages. Other claimants wanted to be paid for jewelry, artwork and family heirlooms. Faced with six million dollars in lawsuits, the Cunard Line rushed to prove it was not at fault. When the German government announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a telegram proposing a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. On April 6th, 1917, America entered the Great War in an eighty two to six congressional vote. The _Lusitania_ survivors ended up in another inquiry held in America with Judge Julius Meyer presiding, and in the process, the world heard many new stories not revealed by the British hearings.

While Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng would go on to live happily ever after, _Lusitania_ would live on in their hearts as a subject of study, as a cultural metaphor, as reminder of human ambition, and how love conquers all against the vast impersonal forces of war.


End file.
